Broken

the world is important to me. Therefore, when natural disasters occur, I am following the unfolding situation. However, on May 2nd, 2008 a catastrophic cyclone hit Myanmar, killing over 100,000 people in a small area of the country. Everything is Broken by Emma Larkin recounts the events of that day through the stories of survivors and explores the historical and political implications that lead to the blockade of humanitarian aid. The purpose of this paper is to explore how this book…

Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the crime epidemic in New York City in the 1980’s, and more so what happened to turn the epidemic around. With compelling and intricate arguments, he detailed how something called the Power of Context and the Broken Windows Theory managed to turn the New York subways, and eventually the city as a whole around from alarming high amounts of crime to the widespread belief that shooting someone on the subway was a radial notion. This discussion starts out…

A Day Late and A Dollar Short In this film, a mother tries to reunite her broken family before she dies due to her chronic asthma illness. Viola, the mother, finds this to be a difficult task as she goes through the process of bringing her children and husband together again. There is infidelity in her relationship with her husband and there is much tension within the relationships of her children. Each of the children are grown and have families of their own, and seem to deal with a different…

During a blazing day in July, I was very upset because the AC was broken. The house was incredible hot and my mom tried to call the repairman but he didn't pick up his phone. My whole body felt like I was in volcano sitting there just waiting to die. The house phone rang I slowly got up, I said “hello?” As I'm slowly dying because of the horrible heat. It was my aunt Jill, she said “ Hey what are you doing today? I said “nothing why?”. Then she told me that she was going to throw a cookout from…

Ethnography is a study used by sociologists to emerge within a group and observe how they operate. Within Sidewalk Gotta Go and Sidewalk Sleeping, Duneier is able to see what is unseen by the average tourist in New York City. Although he had submerged himself with this a group of street vendors on Sixth Avenue, there are advantages and disadvantages to an ethnographical study. Mitchell Duneier was able to work with the street vendors and learn why they had chosen to sleep outside, or why they…

can reach “Tipping Point.” This idea can be proved by “Broken Windows Theory”, which claims that “ If a window is broken and left unrepaired people walking by will conclude that no one cares, and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken, and the sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street on which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes” (Gladwell, 152). Graffiti and fare-beating are both equivalent of broken windows. When people do not care about graffiti…

The people in Rick Bragg 's articles, “The Valley of Broken Hearts”, “New Development Stirs Old Case”, and “French Quarter 's Black Tapping Feet”, all experienced struggles that gave them courage and made them work to get what they thought they deserved: compensation, redemption, and freedom. It is Navajo custom to mourn for four days and then get on with life. Little Joe died from lung cancer 35 years ago, in 1980. He had taken up a job in uranium mines on Navajo land to buy things for his…

Broken Bootstraps: Falling Behind on full time work This article is a reflection and study on the decreasing supply of full time work for the American worker. The article was produced by an organization called Alliance for a Just society. At the time of the publication of the article, the executive director was LeeAnn Hall. This group is comprised of subsidiary groups from states all across the Nation. In the two states that I will be reflecting on, the organizations are the Idaho Community…

In Frederic Bastiat’s essay “What is Money,” his character named F— denounces money, yet praises riches. The patient bystander, B— is confused, as would be nearly any person of his time, and even the majority of people of today. Bastiat uses this exchange between strangers to prove to the reader that money is not wealth, which contradicted the economic system of the time, mercantilism. Money does have an important function, though, and Bastiat wants to make clear to the reader what money is, and…

Seth Holmes’ methodology as described in his book, Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, was that of embodiment and participant observation. With this methodology, Holmes used his own body as an ethnographic tool to understand the situations into which he entered, including picking berries with the Triqui pickers on the Tanaka Farm in the Skagit Valley of Washington state. This gave him a distinct advantage, given that one of his goals was to understand the way farm labor affects the health of the Triqui…