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The New Benefit Plan-Carter Cleaning Company

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The New Benefit Plan-Carter Cleaning Company

As is Carter’s Cleaning Company lacks a consistent and well-defined policy for vacations, sick leave, and paid days off. Implementing the following policy statement plan would benefit not only the employees but also the company itself. Regarding annual leave, employees that have continuously served the company for more than eight years should be entitled to 24 leave days per year with the exception of public holidays. The employees with 2-5 years of service should be granted 18 mandatory leave days. It should also be made a policy that earned leaved days can be passed across years to a maximum of 60 working days at any one time. Regarding medical leave, any employee is eligible for paid sick leave following an examination and upon a doctor’s recommendation. Employees should also be entitled to fourteen days of medical leave each year they are not hospitalized or suffering from prolonged illness, occupational disease, or an injury due to their employment (Yıldırım, & Aydemir-Karadag, 2021). Additionally, all female employees will be eligible for 180-day maternity leave, during which they will be entitled to their basic salary, medical allowance, and house rent. Absence due to miscarriage and related pregnancy illness will not count as maternity leave. Male employees, too, will be entitled to a 14-day maternity leave during which they will be paid.

There are numerous advantages and disadvantages of providing employees with health hospitalization and life insurance programs. For any company, whether big or small, insurance and health benefits are crucial for the remuneration packages. As a matter of fact, employees tend to be drawn toward employers that offer health benefits. Therefore, it makes sense for any business owner to include health benefits as they attract and retain high-performing employees. Another advantage of offering health and insurance to employees is that it gives employees better group purchasing power. Although the employer can choose not to contribute to the employee’s insurance, it allows them to obtain pocket-friendly rates for the entire groups. Moreover, it gives the company a tax advantage. An employer can give employees something that raises their compensation package while at the same time allowing tax deductions. On the downside, health insurance programs have been rising significantly in recent years. The costs can be draining for the company as the costs can drain the valuable resources of even small employers. This uncertainty makes it difficult for the company to undertake financial planning. Another disadvantage is the administrative hassles that go into the programs. Although the selected insurance company acts as the plan administrator, it is still upon the employer to fill out to remit premiums, fill out form and act as a point of intermediary between the insurer and the employee. All these tasks tend to be time-consuming.

Undoubtedly, I would advise Carter Company to consider establishing a daycare center for all employees as only good would come from it. Daycare services are rather relevant to the company and would go a long way in attracting high-achieving employees. This idea would be viable, especially because many employees with children tend to struggle with daycare, which is expensive for them. Incorporating a daycare aspect at the workplace would create a conducive environment for employees to deliver results because their minds are at ease (Park, Song, & Kim, 2020). The daycare center should, of course, be positioned separately from the offices but at the same time close enough for employees to check on their young ones. When employees do not have to worry about their children’s well-being, they tend to be well settled and productive, which positively impacts the company as a whole.

References

Park, N. S., Song, S. M., & Kim, J. E. (2020). The mediating effect of childcare teachers’ resilience on the relationship between social support in the workplace and their self-care. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(22), 8513. https://doi.org/10.3390%2Fijerph17228513Yıldırım, G., & Aydemir-Karadag, A. (2021). Designing an annual leave scheduling policy: Case of a financial center. Journal of Industrial & Management Optimization. http://dx.doi.org/10.3934/jimo.2021097

The Myth of ‘Beautiful Clean Coal’ – While the U.S. president advocates for the most polluting fossil fuel, a shrinking number of power companies see a future for it.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-29/what-is-trump-s-clean-coal-and-does-it-even-existThick white smoke tinged with a silvery hue blows from the chimney of one of the cleanest coal plants in the world.

Designed by General Electric Co. and run by the German utility Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG, this facility in Karlsruhe on the banks of the Rhine River is at the heart of a debate about whether coal can ever be clean enough to work in a world fighting climate change.

While the unit produces enough electricity for 912,000 homes, it also devours 250 tons of coal per hour, leaving it a substantial emitter of greenhouse gases. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is considering proposals to close Germany’s remaining coal plants by 2030—even the cleanest of them. Manufacturers and utilities are hitting back with more efficient technology that makes the most polluting fossil fuel a little less dirty.

“If you look only at CO2 emissions as a data point, then of course we should stop burning coal,” said Michael Keroulle, chief commercial officer of GE Steam Power, a unit of the Boston-based conglomerate that’s selling coal technology. “But the reality is that countries need access to secure, reliable energy, and renewables can’t always provide that.”

The GE plant near EnBW’s headquarters in Karlsruhe, about 90 miles south of Frankfurt, is one of more than 300 plants worldwide tagged as “clean coal” by the industry. They represent about 12 percent of the power produced by coal around the world, according to data from the S&P Global Market Intelligence World Electric Power Plant Database, Platts.

That’s raised alarm among environmental groups, who point to scientific research suggesting the world must swear off fossil fuels by the middle of the century to prevent the worst impacts of global warming.

“Clean coal is a deliberately misleading term,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior analyst at Greenpeace’s air pollution unit. “In the context of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, there are two kinds of coal: far too polluting, and far too expensive.”

The moniker “clean coal” was most famously used by U.S. President Donald Trump in his State of the Union address and actually refers to a range of technologies. Some remove impurities from different grades of the fuel to make it burn more quickly, delivering greater power. Others scrub sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, and nitrous oxide, which harms the Earth’s ozone layer and worsens respiratory conditions such as asthma.

“We have ended the war on American Energy—and we have ended the war on clean coal. We are now an exporter of energy to the world.” —Donald Trump in his State of the Union address, Jan. 30, 2018

Trump made reviving what he calls “beautiful clean coal” a cornerstone of his legislative agenda, vowing to bring back jobs to the ailing industry. His administration has also argued that keeping coal plants provides a cheap and secure energy source that can’t be matched by wind, solar or natural gas.

The most promising systems essentially burn coal at super-high temperatures more quickly than conventional plants, squeezing more energy out of each ton of fuel. Their costs are about 40 percent higher than a regular plant, and their carbon dioxide emissions are 25 percent to 35 percent lower, according to the World Coal Association. On pollution, they can even rival natural gas, the cleanest fossil fuel.

Some 70 percent of the energy is lost when coal is burned in a typical power plant. ‘Clean coal’ plants still lose more than half the energy content.

“The best coal-fired plants are now producing emissions of NOx, SO2 and particulates that are actually lower than gas plants, which is certainly saying something,” said Ian Barnes, principal associate at the IEA’s Clean Coal Center. “For poorer countries like Bangladesh, the availability of affordable power will help to lift millions of people out of poverty.”

For the coal industry, this technology represents a better way to slow the growth in emissions while ensuring greater access to electricity.

The World Coal Association estimates it would cost $31 billion to upgrade 400 gigawatts of coal stations to use the best technologies. That’s a fraction of the $2.4 trillion-a-year investment in clean energy that’s needed to avoid a dangerous warming of the planet, according to a panel of scientists convened by the United Nations.

The most efficient plants operating now, like EnBW’s so-called RDK8 unit in Karlsruhe, are dubbed “ultra-supercritical,” or USC for short.

The name comes from the method of heating water to make steam, operating at a temperature of 600 degrees Celsius (1,100 Fahrenheit)—a third hotter than an oven set to the self-clean cycle. Under intense heat and pressure, water enters a “supercritical” phase where it’s neither a liquid nor a gas but has properties of both. That steam hits the 50-ton power-generation turbine at Karlsruhe with the force of a bullet, rotating it 50 times a second.

Manufacturers including GE, IHI Corp. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. in Japan, Siemens AG in Germany and Doosan Corp. in South Korea are promoting these USC plants as a way to make coal cleaner for places that need cheap energy. They’re vying for orders in Asia, especially China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia, which have fewer alternatives than rich industrial countries.

“If we stop coal-power plants all of a sudden, that will leave the world in disarray,” said Hiroshi Ide, executive officer and vice president of resources, energy and environment at IHI in Tokyo. “The dangerous thing is if customers choose coal power and pick the cheap and inefficient equipment, which emits a lot of carbon dioxide.”

Environmental lobbyists are the most obvious threat to these ambitions. Groups like the Sierra Club, backed by Michael Bloomberg, who owns Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg News, along with the Natural Resources Defense Council have focused attention on the harm done by coal pollution. They note that even the best coal plants contaminate groundwater and put mercury and dust into the air—in addition to their greenhouse-gas footprint.

“There is an honest concern among many in government around the world to modernize their economies and remedy energy poverty,” said David Schlissel, director of resource and planning at the Institute for Economics and Financial Analysis, an environment-focused research group based in Cleveland, Ohio. “For more than a century, burning coal was an accepted and economical way to do this. This is no longer the case.”

The clean-coal industry’s bigger hurdle may be finance, which is drying up quickly in Europe and the U.S., mainly because the projects are so costly and complex.

In the U.S., the only large clean-coal plant is NRG Energy Inc.’s W.A. Parish Unit 8 in Texas, which has a carbon-capture system added to it using Mitsubishi technology. It captures 90 percent of the CO2 in the processed flue gas and also has systems that reduce emissions of sulfur, mercury, nitrogen oxide and particulates. Southern Co. abandoned the clean-coal section of its $7.5 billion Kemper plant in Mississippi after cost overruns and problems building structures that could withstand temperatures above 900 degrees.

At AES Corp., a utility based in Arlington, Virginia, that operates power plants of all kinds in 15 countries, Chief Executive Officer Andres Gluski has been winding down his company’s commitment to coal mainly because of cost. In the past year, he’s sold or closed 4.5 gigawatts of coal plants and built 3 gigawatts of renewable-energy capacity. A gigawatt is about as much as a single nuclear reactor produces.

“You need 20 years just to pay off the debt,” Gluski said. “Where do you think that makes sense? We don’t see any new coal in the U.S. That’s the bottom line.”

Even in Asia, where the IEA expects dozens of new coal plants to be built in the coming years, it’s becoming more difficult to get loans. Development banks are shifting more of their support to green-energy projects, backing the goals of governments to rein in pollution.

“There’s really no such thing as clean coal,” said Woochong Um, director-general of the sustainable development and climate-change department at the Asian Development Bank, which is based in Manila. “In the last five years, we haven’t found the type of coal project we would do.”

The New Deal—Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt

Ironically, few Americans more qualified to deal with hard times than Herbert Hoover. Orphaned at eleven, he left Iowa to live with relatives in Oregon, eventually graduating from Stanford University. He became a millionaire by forty and a reputation as an expert in streamlining complex operations. In l928, Hoover’s accomplishments and energy won him the Republican nomination for President and easily defeated Democrat Al Smith (part of his defeat was due to his Catholic religion). Like most Americans, Hoover believed the l929 economic collapse was a garden-variety recession and would quickly work itself out. However, from the beginning, he was not willing to sit back and do nothing:

Called a special session of Congress to deal with depressed farm prices, and after much wrangling, Congress passed a law that provided federal loans to farm cooperatives. In l930, he asked and received a tax cut of 160 million dollars.

When conditions deteriorated in l931, Hoover moved further in the direction of governmental intervention. In June, the President called for a moratorium on the payment of war debts to America.

He accelerated work on Boulder Dam and developed plans for the Grand Coulee Dam started in l933.

Finally, he approved the creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in late l931. The R.F.C. was authorized to lend $500 million to financial institutions to direct the “trickling down” of money to the public. In l932, he reluctantly agreed to let the R.F.C. lend $300 million to states for the relief of unemployment.

Unfortunately, Hoover’s efforts were too little too late. His belief that giving money to the financial institutions to trickle down never happened, and he was criticized for willing to earmark federal money for businesses while denying it to the unemployed. As comedian Will Rogers irreverently remarked that the “trickle-down theory always operated in reverse. He quipped, “You can drop a bag of gold in Death Valley, which is below sea level, and before Sunday, it will be home to Papa J.P. Morgan.”

Hoover made matters worse by supporting passage of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff in l930. The record high protective tariff had little impact on domestic prices or foreign exporters but provoked sharp retaliation from other countries, cutting American exporting in half between l930 and l932.

One of Hoover’s grievous mistakes was his move against the “bonus army” of l932. The so-called army consisted of 22,000 World War I veterans who had come to Washington, D.C., to lobby for immediate payment of bonuses due them in l945 for their service. When the Senate rejected the bonus bill, many dejected returned home. However, others made camp in ramshackle quarters on Anacostia Flats across the river from the Capital.

Following several skirmishes with the police in which bricks flew, and several veterans died, Hoover ordered the army in under the leadership of General Douglas MacArthur to remove the men from the camp. Unfortunately, MacArthur exceeded his assignment and burned down the entire encampment. Using tear gas and mounted bayonets, they wadded into the camp gassing a thousand men, women, and children. Seldom in American history have American troops been used with so little cause or restraint.

Franklin D. Roosevelt:

Franklin D. Roosevelt, a product of Hyde Park, New York tutors, and Harvard University, became President in l932. The distant cousin of Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin married Eleanor (also a distant relative) working his way up from Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Governor of New York. A second-rate intellect with an excellent temperament, Roosevelt had overcome the incredible challenge of polio in l921. Roosevelt waged a well-organized presidential campaign with a mix of wealthy backers and a “brain trust” of academic advisors who provided great ideas and well-written speeches. His campaign revealed one of his significant assets as President; the ability to attract able associates from diverse backgrounds and political persuasions.

Roosevelt and the New Deal

In l932, he promised to look after the “forgotten men, the unorganized but indispensable units of economic power.” Also, he pledged to end prohibition, restore purchasing power to the farmers, and bring relief to the small banks and homeowners. With his victory, he promised a bold federal government dedicated to promoting conservation (like his distant cousin Teddy), regulate public utilities, and curb the excesses of Wall Street.

In a statement characterizing the cornerstone of his political philosophy going into the White House, he remarked, “America demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” In other words, he was not going to be bound by a consistent economic philosophy.

His distant cousin Theodore Roosevelt had promised the American people a “square deal,” he offers the American people a “New Deal:”

1.The four months between the election and taking office were among the most dismal in American history.

2.Though he had promised America bold action during the campaign, he never explicitly pointed out precisely what he would do once elected. In his inaugural address, he hinted that he would seek broad executive power to wage war against the emergency, as “great” as the power given him had the country been invaded by a foreign foe.

3.In the first l00 days [March 9-June 16 l933] that followed, Roosevelt kept his promise to act, and an unprecedented volume of legislation flowed from Congress.

4.Immediately declared a national bank holiday and called Congress into a special session.

5.Emergency Banking Act—required each bank in the Federal Reserve System inspected and licensed before it could reopen, forbade the hoarding of gold, and extended loans to banks.

6.The Glass-Steagall Act (June, l933)—separated commercial and investment banking to limit bank speculation; established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insured individual bank deposits up to $ 5000.

7.Agricultural Adjustment Act (May, l933)—The Act attempted to address one of the great tragedies of the depression, the surplus of farm products amid starvation. The excess caused a decline in farm income and, in turn, restricted farmers’ purchasing power. The AAA paid farmers to limit their production. The hope was to raise agricultural prices, increasing farmers’ income. In l936, the Supreme Court ended AAA, ruling the processing of tax regulated agricultural production was illegal.

8.The Civilian Conservation Corps (June, l933)—Brought together the preservation of natural resources and relief for the unemployed by taking men between the ages of 18 and 25 to work in the countryside and protect and develop forests and parks.

9.The National Industrial Recovery Act (June, l933)—The Act attempted to balance supply and demand, as well as labor and business relations. The N.R.A. oversaw the Act’s formation of “fair codes of competition.” Under the N.R.A., the creation of voluntary codes made it necessary for employers to “comply with the maximum hours of labor, minimum rates of pay, and other conditions of employment by approved or prescribed by the President. The symbol of the program was the Blue Eagle, which appeared in store windows, billboards, etc.

10.Section 7-A of the N.R.A. attempted to undo some of the limitations on organized labor. Such attempts began had begun under President Hoover with the passage of the Norris-LaGuardia Act (l932). Specifically, Section 7-A guaranteed the workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their choosing and receive the maximum hours to work, and the minimum rates of pay. In l935, the Supreme Court in Schechter v. Poultry Co. v. United States invalidated the N.R.A. codes system as an unconstitutional delegation of the making power to the executive and a federal invasion of intrastate commerce.

11.The Tennessee Valley Authority (May, l933), created a “corporation clothed in the power of government but possessed the flexibility and initiative enterprise” to develop the entire Tennessee River to solve fundamental environmental problems. The Act also included bringing better living conditions to its inhabitants—electricity under federal supervision and control.

12.Federal Emergency Relief Administration (May, l933) provided federal money to states to combat unemployment and set up labor projects.

13.Public Works Administration (June 1933), under Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, administered a fund of 3.3 billion dollars to construct public-works projects such as highways, buildings, and dams. By l935, Ickes received criticism for handling the program too slow, and not reducing unemployment.

The Works Progress Administration in l935 under Harry L. Hopkins favored small public projects, replaced the PWA. The program provided work-relief for nearly 3 million Americans who participated in the building of airports, schools, production of plays, maps, and books.

14.Toward the end of the first New Deal, the administration passed several important pieces of legislation to supplement the Glass-Steagall Act.

15.The Securities Exchange Act (l934) set up the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to supervise the activities of all stock exchanges and to protect the public against deceit and other forms of corruption. The Act met with much hostility on Wall Street but helped to restore public confidence in the stock market:

a.The Federal Securities Act of l935 set standards for Wall Street in the issuance of new securities.

b.The Banking Act of l935 gave the Federal Reserve Board more power to limit the credit of the member banks, hence controlling their operations.

c.To move away from the gold standard and the deeply entrenched deflationary policies, Roosevelt passed the Gold Reserve Act of l934. The Act gave President Roosevelt the power to order the Federal Reserve banks to turn over their supply of gold to the U.S. Treasury in return for gold certificates and then devalued the dollar by cutting the amount of gold backing for each dollar. It allowed printing more money to help groups like the farmers pay their debts.

Other relevant New Deal Legislation:

16.The Wagner Act of l935 or the National Labor Relations Act) harkened back to section 7-A of the N.I.R.A. by clearly defining the government’s support of workers’ right to organize. The Act also provided for the establishment of a National Labor Relations Board to protect the right to self-organization. The Act included the right join, assist labor organizations, and collective bargaining through representatives of their choosing.

17.One of the most significant laws of the New Deal was the Social Security Act of l935. This law stole the thunder from the appeal of Dr. Francis Townshend, a retired physician who felt, “We owe every decent living to the older people,” and supported a plan that would give every citizen over the age of $60 a monthly income of $200.

18.The Social Security Act guaranteed a pension plan for the elderly, which was coupled with unemployment benefits for younger workers. Finance of the new system would come from payroll taxes. Government responsibility for the aged, the unemployed, and eventually, the dependent and disabled, was guaranteed. The New Deal peaks in 1935.

Critics of Roosevelt and the New Deal:

1.By the end of the 100 days, when statistics indicated the depression was only slowing down, critics of specific legislation made their feelings known.

2.Attacks from both the right and the increased left-wing pressure on the President.3.Business demanded a return to the days of laissez-faire philosophy, attacking Roosevelt for favoring the ordinary people while hampering industrial growth. The National Recovery Act was seen by business as a direct challenge to the free-enterprise system.

4.Demagogues rose to attack Roosevelt and the New Deal:

Huey Long, the United States Senator from Louisiana, proposed redistribution of income to pay a guaranteed income of $5000 to every family in America and “Make Every Man a King.” His “Share the Wealth” program received considerable support and made Long a potential presidential candidate in l936. His folksy and racist ways made him a real man of the people during these desperate times until his assassination in l936.

-Father Charles E. Coughlin, “the Radio Priest,” turned his weekly religious message from the subject of God to social reform. He claimed Roosevelt had failed and was now the “great betrayer.” He warned his listeners that the nationalization of industry and that Jews had taken over the New Deal.

-After the Second New Deal, Roosevelt and the Democratic Party was at war with itself.

-In response to Supreme Court Justices, who had invalidated his earlier legislation, Roosevelt proposed the Court Packing Plan in l937. Emboldened by his landslide presidential election in l936, the plan would provide retirement at full salaries for Justices over seventy. If a justice refused to retire, an “assistant” justice with full-court voting rights was to be appointed, increasing the size of the court. The extraordinary plan failed after Roosevelt learned he did not have enough Congressional support to pass the bill.

With the 1937 recession and the rise again in unemployment and a weak stock market, Roosevelt’s New Deal ended.

Assessment of the New Deal:

It changed the relationship between the national government and the people.

It began a civil war within the Democratic Party that would last into the l960’s when Southern white Democrats began to leave the party because of its stand on civil rights, women’s rights, and affirmative action. Those Democrats became the basis of the “new Republican Party.

Still, while the New Deal failed to end the depression, it made millions of American lives more bearable.

It passed laws that prevented another collapse of the economy by business and Wall Street until 2008’s Great Recession

Art

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The Mona Lisa painting is one of the most amazing and most eye-catching work of art that compels an individual to look in appreciation of beauty. The Mona Lisa is perhaps one of Leonardo Da Vinci’s most famous paintings as it is well known by a majority of individuals all over the globe (Keele, 2014). The painting is most famous due to the elegant smile of a woman, to which individuals have been trying to solve for a lengthy time. A majority of the people believe that the portrait is that of Da Vinci himself while others have placed a lot of mystic connections with the painting. The painting depicts a woman’s bust with a distant landscape to which is visible in the backdrop. A pyramid design was used by Leonardo to install the woman in a simple and a calm manner within the painting. The woman in the painting is shown with her hands folded, with her face, neck and the breasts painted the same color as her hands. The light is diffused such that the various curves as well as her geometrical shapes on the painting are made to be more visible through it. It is probable that the most exciting thing about the painting is that of the woman’s smile, with many believing that it is innocent and inviting, while others believe that it is that of smugness and can be termed as a smirk. A lot of scientific studies have been conducted to determine the exact nature of the smile but the real reasons have remained to be a mystery. It is believed that each person has a different view upon seeing the smile on the portrait due to the changes of the lighting to which were presented by Leonardo. The woman is shown seated in an open area, and behind her is a vast landscape receding to an icy mountain. There are some winding paths and a bridge far away can be seen from the painting.

Through the Mona Lisa painting, Leonardo Da Vinci became the first painter to use the aerial perspective to depict a sitter before an imaginary landscape in a portrait (Shlain, 2014). The mysterious and enigmatic woman is seated in an open loggia as the painting portrays each side of the portrait containing dark pillar bases. The clothing and hair of the woman create a series of sensual curves that echoes into the rivers and the undulating valleys behind her. Leonardo is a creative painter as his calmness and style have been characterized in the paintings of graceful figures, outlines, light and dark, dramatic contrast as well as the overall feeling that is displayed by the Mona Lisa painting. Since the Mona Lisa painting does not represent a real woman but an ideal woman, a majority of the people argue that it should be considered a traditional portrait as it depicts harmony connecting and linking the nature with humanity through the faint smile. The face in the painting has no visible hair, neither eyebrows nor eyelashes and research have shown that during Mona Lisa’s time, the facial hair was considered unsightly and most genteel women used to pluck them out to conform to their societal norms.

The painting is set within a mountainous landscape that illustrates the ability of the artist to resent heavily shaded model most softly. The figure of the woman in the painting along with her expression are the most significant features of the painting. The expression of Mona Lisa has been described as being both alluring and aloof, and this is the justification of the mysteries to which surround the painting and as a result provide it with a universal frame and look (Hales, 2014). Several themes have emanated from the painting of Mona Lisa, and some of them include aesthetics as well as the philosophical thoughts. The woman in the painting has as well been described as being a soft subject that is perfectly portrayed by the artist. Besides the thematic significance of the painting, it has also been used by the advertisers to illustrate the various thoughts and arouse the desired feelings amongst the consumers.

The Mona Lisa portrait is said to have taken Da Vinci three years before its completion in 1503 (Garrard, 2018). The woman in the portrait as presented by Leonardo is said to be the wife of Francesco Del Giocondo, a famous merchant from the region of Florence and the woman in the painting is therefore inferred to be Lisa Gherardini. Nonetheless, there are debates and mysteries surrounding the painting to which have not been resolved to current times. Significantly is the fact that the painting has been significantly admired since the time of creation. The portrait has also been described as a renaissance portrait, and its fame grew at the time it was stolen in the year 1911 from Salon Carre and later retrieved from Florence. It is therefore through Mona Lisa as depicted by Leonardo that it becomes evident as to how a work of art could be so significant in the communication, engagement of the audience and as well as eliciting the various thematic concerns and feelings in a very significant manner. The painting is a fantastic piece of art, and therefore one should take a look at it so that they can appreciate the full beauty depicted by the work. The picture is with no doubt has been used to grace a majority of the magazines and objects as well as souvenirs due to its significant beauty.

References

Garrard, M. D. (2018). Leonardo da Vinci: female portraits, female nature. In The Expanding Discourse (pp. 58-85). Routledge.

Hales, D. (2014). Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered. Simon and Schuster.

Keele, K. D. (2014). Leonardo da Vinci’s Elements of the science of man. Academic Press.

Shlain, L. (2014). Leonardo’s Brain: Understanding Da Vinci’s Creative Genius. Rowman & Littlefield.

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The Moonlight Film

The film industry in the United States is considered as one of the most developed film industries across the globe. The United States was the first country in the world where moving pictures were shown in theatres in late 19th century. Since then, the industry has grown tremendously. The United States produces close to eight hundred new Hollywood movies every year more than any other nation in the world. Film industry in the United States depicts the cultural practices of the people and the evolution of these cultural practices over the years. When the moving pictures were first shown in cinemas in 19th century, the common genre were comic plays but, that changed over the years and more genres including action and drama movies were introduced. Still, majority of the people who featured in these movies were white people. Film industry has grown in the United States shaping the cultural practices in the country over the years and many movies now feature the people of color as the lead characters.

Before late 20th century, black people at the time were going through the struggle of demanding for equal rights and observers intimate that there were more compelling issues that these people were more concerned about than just movies. However, it is critical to note that most of them were greatest fans of the moving pictures and most of the cinemas were actually in their neighborhood. This was because of the resistance from the white community who mentioned that the introduction of entertainment in their neighborhood would attract criminals and drug peddlers. The first African-American to make a movie in 1919 was Oscar Micheaux who resorted to establishing his own production company to make movies that would tell the African story. There were a lot of restriction imposed on the people of color and Micheaux took advantage of the popular motion pictures that were gaining moment in early 20th century. However, it is critical to note that few black people started acting in movies and the number progressively increased throughout the century (Balio).

Moonlight is a drama movie that features a young black boy living with his mother in a poor neighborhood. Chiron and his mother Paula live in Miami, a crime ridden neighborhood due to the drugs that is peddled in the area. The film starts by portraying Chiron as a young boy who struggles to find himself in a place where he is isolated and mistreated by his own mother. The mother is a crack addict who does not care about the welfare of his son. Chiron is bullied by other boys in school and the only friend he has is another black boy named Kelvin who stands with him despite being bullied by everyone else in school. Chiron finally meets Juan who takes him to his girlfriend Teresa and guides him through life and what is has to do to carve his own path. Although Juan was the drug dealer peddling drugs in Miami, this does not stop him from displaying the human side of him as a person. Moonlight has several distinct themes that are exhibited throughout the movie. These themes include masculinity, sexuality, love, race, family and identity.

The themes portrayed in the Moonlight Film tells the greater American story which makes it one of the most significant movies in 21st century. One of the notable themes in the movie is the struggle that the people of color go through in the neighborhood. Chiron who is a young black boy is abused by his colleagues in school because of the color of his skin. Chiron is too young to understand what is going on and he could not even run to his mother who was equally abusive. Finally, Chiron finds refuge in Juan’s house who guides him through the challenges he was going through. This is a story that many black people can relate to in the history if America. Historically, most of the black people have always lived in poor neighborhood that is characterized with drugs and crime. Therefore, it is not a surprise that Moonlight features black people as the main characters and portrays the kind of life that these people live in their neighborhood. Another notable theme in the movie is the act of masculinity that is displayed through the main characters. Chiron suffers abuses from his colleagues in school and even at home, he is abused by his own mother. One of the scenes where masculinity is depicted is when Kelvin tells Chiron to stop giving his abusers the pleasure to abuse him instead, he should fight and defend himself. The themes of love and family is also evident in the film. Although Chiron was neglected and abused by his own mother, he eventually finds love in Juan’s home. Teresa admits him in her house and takes care of him like his own son. This is a depiction of love. The theme of family is also depicted through Chiron’s family which is broken and the mother is a carnal drug abuser who does not care about the welfare of her son (Jordan and Brooms, 137).

In film industry there are rules and regulations that should be adhered to by the film makers to ensure that the film meets the standards and conveys the intended message. However, Moonlight disobeyed most the set rules and regulations and still managed to attract millions of viewers across the world. The movie also won a lot of academy awards. One of the rules that the movie defied is that it does not have a lot of inciting incidences that would attract viewers and leave them clued to their screens. Ideally, a drama movie should have compelling incidences that attracts viewers. Moonlight is also not a plot oriented movie. The movie concentrates more on character development before the plot is actually understood by viewers. Chiron is developed in three different scenarios where he goes through phases of growth and this takes the central part of the movie. When the movie starts, it does not explicitly telegraph the direction that the film would take and this leaves many viewers in suspense. It is also slow when it starts before gaining momentum as it progresses.

One of the central theme that causes a lot of controversy in the film is the queer identity that is depicted through Chiron and his friend Kelvin. In the United States, gays have often been associated with white people but the Moonlight movie draws a different approach and incorporates black people who are in love with each other. The director of the movie cleverly uses black actors to dismiss the stereotype that people have held for unusually long time regarding the queer family. Chiron struggles to find his identity because of the color of his skin and this act tells the American story where people of color who are part of the queer family have struggled to fit into the community partly because of the stereotype associated with gay and also because of the reception they receive from their fellow black people. According to Randolph (383), “It is always a strange sensation seeing oneself on the screen. If you are a straight white man, then this sensation is probably common and pedestrian. If you are a queer black man, then the sensation is arresting and reflective.” Despite the controversy surrounding one of the themes in the movie, the film was received positively around the world. It is a movie that depicts one’s innermost self and that one needs to rediscover and find themselves in life. The movie was also embraced by the queer family and taunted as one of the bravest films in 21st century. One of the misconception that people have had about the queer family is that it is predominantly white but this movie defuses that notion.

In conclusion, Moonlight film won several awards. One of the awards that moonlight won was the academy award for best pictures. It is evident that despite the movies departure from most of the conventional rules that guides a film’s pictures, Moonlight still won an award. Equally, the movie also won academy award for best writing. From the reception that the movie received, it is clear it had been written and executed well. The movie also won MTV Movie award for the best kiss. In the same year, the movie won several other accolades. Evidently, Moonlight is one of the best Movies in the 21st century that explains the pain of seeking to identify oneself amid racial discrimination and biases associated with one’s identity. According to Raunig “To be afforded a window into another consciousness is a gift that only art can give. To know Chiron is a privilege”

Work Cited

Balio, Tino, ed. The American film industry. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1985.

Raunig, C. “Who is you?” on “Moonlight”, Chiron, and Identity

Jordan, Eric A., and Derrick R. Brooms. “Black and Blue: Analyzing and Queering Black Masculinities in Moonlight.” Living Racism: Through the Barrel of the Book 137 (2017).

Randolph, Robert. “Moonlight.” Queer Studies in Media & Pop Culture 2.3 (2017): 383-388.

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The Moons Navel

Raul is seen ashamed and not happy to be identified as a Mexican by Dan in the Museum. He describes his original land as a place where people who are close to giving up in life live. He sees himself as trash where he brings little or no benefit to the society. Evidence which shows exactly that Raul is against his heritage is the fact that he hates how some people pronounce his name (Ruz, 443). He completely hates the Spanish accent which most of the people use while uttering his name, ignoring the fact that most of the people who surround him speak the same language. Spanish accent, which he describes it as unpleasant to him makes him loose interest in learning the language, where he openly claims that he does not know how to communicate in Spanish. Hiding the fact that he is a Mexican simply describes his hatred for his own land, where he describes his home as a place where people who fail go to live with no struggle in their life. He calls his home a place for useless people, who have failed to achieve any goal in their entire lives.

According to Raul, reaching a certain age gives an individual the right to make decisions which directly concern their lives (Wise, 32). At that age, any person should be able to make conclusions on ideas concerning their lives by basing their decisions with what they love or feel comfortable doing. Being a gay proved to Raul that he had to struggle to make sure that people respect and accept the fact that he is not straight. Workplaces, social lives and the governmental systems of the places he lived never had a chance for people like him, so he ended up fighting for her own happiness.

Works Cited

Ruz, Tania Sordo. “A Surrealist Country.” Law & Bus. Rev. Am. 15 (2009): 443.

WISE, Donald. “Tectonics of the Earth-Moon-Vesta Family.” 2010: 32

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The Morality of Migration” by Seyla Benhabib

In this reading, the author, who is called Seyla Benhabib, argues that President Barack Obama’s administrative order to avert deporting undocumented immigrants who arrived into the U.S. in illegal ways as minors was the perfect doing of a responsible politician. Benhabib asserts that the United States special responsibility to hospitality with two ethical principles made by the U.S. Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the people’s government to control their borders and humans’ rights to cross borders peacefully. The writer gives her arguments concerning immigrants and migration rights under her entitled contemporary ethics “The Morality of Migration,” whereby she says that President Obama did the best thing by stopping the deportation of illegal immigrants under the DREAM Act.

In her writing, she defines two ethical principles of immigrants in the U.S. as humanity’s rights to reside anywhere peacefully and the government’s rights to govern who crosses the border activities. According to her reading, immigrants are not criminals; they require someone to assist them in getting their human rights. Benhabib praised President Barack Obama for his action of saving human rights for the migrants. She wrote that there are two fundamental applicable principles for migration as legal and ethical principles. However, the foundation of a system is merely likely when people understand human rights and then decide to follow these principles.

As per her reading, it is essential to maintain people’s basic rights for living anywhere in the universe. She defines all her views from an ethical point of view. Benhabib mentioned that in the U.S., Articles 13 and 14 asserts that America ought to protect refugee and asylum rights in a way that people should get basic human rights. The United States should understand immigrants’ needs and do their duties of protecting them rather than fighting them. According to the reading, there ought not to be migratory movement since it defines imperfect justice.

Deviance

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The Most Deviantized Group in United States

Deviance denotes behaviors or actions that go against formally enacted rules or informal social customs. Formal deviance encompasses criminal abuse of legally passed laws. The major examples of deviance behaviors in the United States include murder, rape, assault, robbery, and theft. On the other hand, informal deviance denotes going against informal social customs, which are standards that have not been classified into law (Pande, 2017). In the United States, the Islamic belief system or Muslims are considered as the deviant group by the society. The existence of the Al Shabaab group that is connected to the Islam religion is the main purpose why the society considers this group as the deviant one. Al Shabaab has been involved in several deviant behaviors in different nations like Kenya, whereby individuals in the society end up being murdered (Cusack, 2016). Such behaviors violate social norms, including formally enacted rules like crime. Social stigma is much reflective that it suppresses a positive social view concerning the manner in which an individual in the Islam religion follows the other social norms. Muslims are stigmatized because of the actions that the Al Shabaab militia takes part in. The individuals feel so bad and experience blame and critics all over. Some feel that the world around them is so detrimental and unfair due to the stigma.

In my opinion, the Black American group is the most deviant in the United States. Black Americans consist of roughly 13 percent of the United States population; however, 27 percent of the major arrests in several years are normally made against blacks compared to 70 percent for whites. The whites comprise approximately 74 percent of the population. In general, saying the Blacks are much expected to be put under arrest, and when to find guilty in court, they are given a long prison term (Leigh, A., & Melwani, 2019). To some extent, the same trends can be seen for other ethnic interest groups. Black Americans receive social stigma. The cultural sentiments are dominated by the realism that the black individuals that are stigmatized have disproportionate problems of negative. The mental well-being of the Black Americans is under tension as 2020 unravels, taking to light racial differences across the state. Whether it’s anxiety or depression (or, the nastiest incident scenario, suicide), there is a long time belief of the social stigmatization that they undergo.

The United States needs to continue making changes for Black Americans to have equal rights with whites because I consider this group not deviant. For many years, the Black has been civilized, and most of them observe and follow the social norms. The Blacks are more prone than whites to embellish the magnitude to which African Americans are confined in inner-city dearth. The black nations are nowadays considered as the birthplace of the cradle of civilization and humanity (Graham, 2020). The blacks have made a great achievement in observing and keeping the social norms. As a result, they should not be considered deviants or condemned for minor offenses but they be educated on the importance of not violating social norms or observing the enacted rules. The blacks’ lives in America should be based on equality, freedom, and pursuit of happiness. Social stigmatization ought not to be part of the daily lives of black Americans.

Reference

Cusack, C. M. (2016). Twins and Deviance: Law, Crime, Sex, Society, and Family. Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Pande, B. B. (2017). Unit-1 Concept Of Deviance And Crime. IGNOU.Leigh, A., & Melwani, S. (2019). # Black Employees Matter: Mega-Threats, Identity Fusion, and Enacting Positive Deviance in Organizations Academy of Management Review, 44(3), 564-591.

Graham, R. (2020). Race, Social Media, and Deviance. The Palgrave Handbook of International Cybercrime and Cyberdeviance, 67-90.

The most important person that has helped me succeed throughout my college career is Mrs. Frank. Mrs. Frank is the main teacher that help shape me into the person that I am today. She taught a lot of classes during my high school years and only after graduation did I realize the ways in which she helped direct me to the success that I am currently experiencing today.

Mrs. Frank was always a very positive and caring person. Even though she doesn’t look like it, she has this unique vibe that makes her different. During my first two years in college, I decided to take many non-science classes. I decided on this decision because I thought that I would find it easier to connect with each class by taking a humanities class, (in reality it didn’t matter on what level Mrs. Frank taught).

I am planning on doing a lot of fun things over the spring break. I am going to have a lot of fun, and I will be very full of energy. In fact, I am going to be such a giant hike, I will probably be able to take a month’s worth of walking-around time. Anyway, I have been doing some thinking. What I have been thinking, is that I may make a few bets. There are a lot of things in this world that make me laugh. I will spend my spring break exploring Hawaii with my best friend, Amanda. When we were young she insisted on coming and I didn’t want to spend the whole week without her, but I didn’t know how and I really needed to save my money. Anyway, on my birthday, she gave me a hundred dollars.

That’s when I thought about spending my spring break in Hawaii. I was so surprised because I can even afford a flight either by myself or with Amanda. I told her about my thoughts and she said would like to go to Hawaii but she couldn’t afford it either. It turned out that my hundred dollars could buy what I expected. Amanda said she wasn’t sure that I needed to spend spring break with her. She had a lot of other friends and could go to Hawaii with someone else. I persuaded her to go with me because I know she’s been alone since she moved away, and I would love to spend some time with her.

One song that I can’t stop listening to right now is “The Gambler” by Kenny Rodgers. The song is short but has a strong and vibrant rhythm. I like the way the song sounds like. The song is a blessing to me and this feeling it gives me is what I love and appreciate most in life. The song is about a man giving a son some advice. The best line in this song is “Every gambler knows That the secret to survivin’ Is knowin’ what to throw away and knowin’ what to keep”. I like everything about the song. The melody of it is fantastic, it’s one of those hooks that is so good actually makes you not want to listen to anything else while the song is playing. The beat is great and the lyrics and the message is relevant with my life right now. As each year goes by, I find myself trying to find someone who can teach me lessons so I’m read up on my own knowledge. I try to learn from the song every day. The song reminds me that I move forward with myself and how I should trust my feelings and my gut about a situation. It keeps my feelings in check and tells me to move forward with what I know. I also want to share with you my favorite memory of a song.

The most important thing is not life, but the good life

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Introduction

“The most important thing is not life, but the good life” is a statement that says life is not the most important thing, instead it is living your life with meaning and purpose. Perhaps living a life that is just in society would make my life worth living, but if we do not have a purpose to our lives then we will just be mere physical bodies, having no soul and therefore no meaning. In Greek mythology, Socrates was pointed out as having a good life, and his death was because of how important he thought the most important thing in life was (Corlett, 2018). This essay will investigate and find out what made Socrates’ good life so special. It will also explore why this statement is true. If you live your life with meaning and purpose, then your life is worth living because it gives you a reason to keep be alive.

Argument supporting the thesis

Thesis statement: If you live your life with meaning and purpose, then your life is worth living because it gives you a reason to keep be alive. Socrates refused to make decisions himself, however he would rather ask somebody else who could make a better decision than him. It is because of this, that one day Socrates would shortly question what it is that makes life so special anyway? “The most important thing is not life, but the good life”. Socrates believed that if you lead your life with purpose and meaning then you were living the good life. He had the ‘Golden Mean’ theory. This theory is one where a person chooses to be morally and ethically good rather than being bad (Corlett, 2018). Socrates believed that this was the best way to do things because it was considered a golden mean where there is no excess or deficiency in good morals. This is always going to be right because it has no excess or deficiency of virtues, therefore it can never end up being wrong in any situation.

Assessment of objections

There are many objections that can be raised against this argument. One is that if we all lived the good life we would have no progression in society. This is because everyone would be too busy doing good to do anything else, therefore nothing would be done. If everybody did what was right and proper then it would not result in any harm because there will be no excess or deficiency of virtues, therefore nothing will ever go wrong. However, it could lead to a breakdown of society because people just do not want to do what is morally good anymore and always want more things.

Conclusion

Socrates believed that the most important thing in life is knowledge, which means that there are a lot more things in life that are of consequence than just one’s physical health. Knowledge is a matter of inquiry, which means it has to be investigated by way of searching. It is of utmost importance to one’s good life (Vallor, 2018). In order to properly understand Socrates’ theory, one must first comprehend what he means by “good”. He is saying that if a person knows what they are doing, and they do it as a service to others or themselves as a result of doing what they want, then they are achieving the good life.Reference

Corlett, J. A. (2018). Legal Obligation in Plato’s Crito. In Interpreting Plato Socratically (pp. 133-168). Springer, Cham.

Vallor, S. (2018). An introduction to data ethics. Course module.) Santa Clara, CA: Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.