Louis Armstrong: From Childhood To Adulthood Essay -- essays research

Louis Armstrong: From Childhood to Adulthood   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When you think of Louis Armstrong you probably think of a jolly middle-aged man who can play the cornet like no one else, a man who had it all, a man who had the good life. Well, Louis was not always that lucky. From childhood to his adulthood, Louis Armstrong changed much as a person and a musician. He worked very hard to become what he became and did not let anything get in the way of becoming a musician. In this paper, you will read about how Louis Armstrong became one of the most influential people/musicians of his time.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Louis Armstrong’s childhood was not of the normal childhoods most of us have had. He had a very hard and painful childhood. He was treated very harshly by his family and the people around him. His mother did not even care enough to keep his birth certificate. That is why no one is really sure of Louis’s birthdate ,but people believe he was born around 1898, in New Orleans. Around Louis’s time of birth, many blacks were confined to live in the slums. The slums were in a way like ghettos. They were very poor, dirty areas where people who hadn’t much money would live. In the slums, there was much violence, drug circulation and prostitution. The only people that made any money in the slums were either the hustlers or the musicians. Considering Louis was not related to anyone of that status he and his family had very little money. That left Louis with no possessions whatsoever. He hadn’t any toys to play with, he didn’t even have a simple stick just to keep him occupied. His clothes were at the lowest of the low class. He was confined to wearing a dress as a younger child until he was a little older, then he had hand me down shirts and shorts to wear. His choice of foods was limited to rice and beans. His family did not make enough money to get better food than that. His family did not have enough of anything to keep him happy. He felt like nobody loved him. When he was born his father left his mother and him to start another life with another family. His mother always was out leaving Louis to fend for himself. But before Louis had lived with his mother he lived with his grandmother. His grandma took the best care of him out of anybody in his family. She always made sure that Louis was fed and that he was not alone. She was the only per... ...uch that he could not get his shoes on. Soon after that Louis was ordered to stay at the Beth Israel Hospital under doctor’s orders. After his final concert he returned there for the last time. He was planning another concert when he died July 6, 1971. Louis’s death was deeply saddening for everyone, but especially Lil. She conducted the band at his funeral in his memory. A memorial service followed which President Nixon attended and spoke at. That was the sad ending of Louis Armstrong.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  To conclude my paper I would like to highlight Louis’s life. He was just a poor child from New Orleans. He had very little education. He had to take care of his sister and himself 90% of the day until he was and adult. He had to work twice as hard as most people have to worked to get where he got to. He was just a simple man who from the beginning just wanted to play music. But he got so much more than just that and was able to fulfil his life to the fullest. Louis Armstrong will always be remembered as a wonderful man with a passion for playing the cornet beautifully. At least we have his music, movies and television appearances which keep him a live to this very day.

Businesses and the Environment: Roles, Obligations, and Implications

Hundreds of individuals are being killed from the repercussions caused by the lack of concern towards the welfare of the environment. In fact, the drastic changes in the weather, the increase in occurrence of natural calamities, as well as the rise of sea level, are just a few of the well documented changes to the planet that are currently posing risks against mankind.In this sense, it is not refutable that businesses, due to the general goal of raising income, have in a way contributed to the occurrence of such environmental problems through various means.Therefore, with the global trend of addressing these environmental concerns through the individual level, I believe that businesses must also take part in the effort through lowering the ecological footprint of their operations. The term ecological footprint pertains to the overall usage of resources as well as release of byproducts which may be applied at the business level (Global Footprint Network [GFN], 2009). Businesses consum e and pollute at an elevated rate gains a greater ecological footprint which means that the business significantly adds to environmental damage.Hence, in order for businesses to gain a lower ecological footprint rating, examples of what can be done including the use of alternative power sources, taking consideration of harvesting and fishing limits, shifting or imposing more efficient trade routes, and using more energy efficient processes or machinery. It is apparent that adopting a business practice that places the welfare of the environment into consideration may not be as complex as commonly thought of.In fact, some of the practices might even lead into bigger savings, as the use of more efficient devices most commonly results in the reduction of operating costs for example.Aside from benefits that businesses must consider, the most important idea that business leaders must keep in mind is that if in the future the environment worsens further to the point of humans being elimina ted, then such a future will indeed be not good for business. Reference Global Footprint Network. (2009, April 27). Overview. Footprint Basics. Retrieved June 8, 2009, from http://www. footprintnetwork. org/en/index. php/GFN/page/footprint_basics_overview/.

What is Social Class, and Why Does it Matter

Class, economic class, socio-economic class, social class. Whats the difference? Each refers to how people are sorted into groups—specifically ranked hierarchies—in society. There are, in fact, important differences among them. Economic Class Economic class refers specifically to how one ranks relative to others in terms of income and wealth. Simply put, we are sorted into groups by how much money we have. These groups are commonly understood as lower (the poorest), middle, and upper class (the richest).  When someone uses the word class to refer to how people are stratified in society, they are most often referring to this. The model of economic class we use today is a derivation of German philosopher Karl Marxs (1818–1883) definition of class, which was central to his theory of how society operates in a state of class conflict. In that state, an individuals power comes directly from ones economic class position relative to the means of production—one is either an owner of capitalist entities or a worker for one of the owners. Marx and fellow philosopher Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) presented this idea in  The Manifesto of the Communist Party, and Marx expounded in much greater length in  volume one of his work called Capital. Socio-Economic Class Socio-economic class, also known as socioeconomic status  and often abbreviated as SES, refers to how other factors, namely occupation and education, are combined with wealth and income to rank a person relative to others in society. This model is inspired by the theories of German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920), who viewed the stratification of society as a result of the combined influences of economic class, social status (the level of a persons prestige or honor relative to others), and group power (what he called party). Weber defined party as the level of ones ability to get what they want, despite how others may fight them on it. Weber wrote about this in an essay titled The distribution of power within the political community: Class, status, party, in his 1922 book  Economy and Society, published after his death. Socio-economic class is a more complex formulation than economic class because it takes into account the social status attached to certain professions considered prestigious, like doctors and professors, for example, and to educational attainment as measured in academic degrees. It also takes into account the lack of prestige or even stigma that may be associated with other professions, like blue-collar jobs or the service sector, and the stigma often associated with not finishing high school.  Sociologists typically create data models that draw on ways of measuring and ranking these different factors to arrive at a low, middle, or high SES for a given person. Social Class The term social class is often used  interchangeably with SES, both by the general public and by sociologists alike. Very often when you hear it used, that is what it means. In a technical sense, however, social class is used to refer specifically to  the characteristics that are less likely to change, or harder to change, than ones economic status, which is potentially changeable over time. In such a case, social class refers to the socio-cultural aspects of ones life, namely the traits, behaviors, knowledge, and lifestyle that one is socialized into by ones family. This is why class descriptors like lower, working, upper, or high can have social as well as economic implications for how we understand the person described. When someone uses classy as a descriptor, they are naming certain behaviors and lifestyle and framing them as superior to others.  In this sense, social class is determined strongly by ones level of cultural capital, a concept developed by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) in his 1979 work Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Bourdieu said that levels of class are determined by the attainment of a specific set of knowledge, behaviors, and skills that allow a person to navigate in society. Why Does It Matter? So why does class, however you want to name it or slice it, matter? It matters to sociologists because the fact that it exists reflects unequal access to rights, resources, and power in society—what we call social stratification. As such, it has a strong effect on the access an individual has to education, the quality of that education, and how high a level he or she can reach. It also affects who one knows socially, and the extent to which those people can provide advantageous economic and employment opportunities, political participation and power, and even health and life expectancy, among many other things. Sources and Further Reading Cookson Jr., Peter W. and Caroline Hodges Persell. Preparing for Power: Americas Elite Boarding Schools. New York: Basic Books, 1985.Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Trans. Moore, Samuel, Edward Aveling and Friedrich Engels. Marxists.org, 2015 (1867).Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Trans. Moore, Samuel and Friedrich Engels. Marxists.org, 2000 (1848).Weber, Max. Economy and Society. ed. Roth, Guenther and Claus Wittich. Oakland: University of California Press, 2013 (1922).