The book that I read was The Godfather by Mario Puzo. This book was about the day to day basis of a family that was heavily involved in the American mafia. One thing that this book did was teach you about the core values of the mafia such as sticking with your family or always doing what you believe in. Also it just kept me entertained with things such as going into great detail about how the godfather was shot and how this eventually led to an all out war among the families.Then this led to the godfathers son ending up killing the man that ordered his father to be shot, which tied back to the values.What I think this book relates to gangs in America. I think that these two relate well for many different reasons. Also the two relate because they both do the same types of things such as set up a drug kingpin or possibly set up a kingpin in anything that would be profitable and most likely illegal because no one else would want to do it, and that is where competition comes into play. And they both have rivals in gangs place, other gangs and for mafia families it was other families. In conclusion I believe that both modern day gangs and the mafia are very similar.
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My book, The Godfather by Mario Puzo is important in many different ways. Yes, it may be fictional but it also provides a very good first hand account of what life in the mafia would’ve been like.It takes you on a first hand account of what life in the American mafia and what organized crime would’ve been like. On many different occasions in the book it shows us what decisions people had to make and the reasoning behind those decisions, such as the decision that Michael Corleone had to make. His decision was whether or not to join the family business. But once his father was shot his choice was an easy one to make. He later on had to kill Solozzo who was the man who ordered Don Corleone to be shot. Essentially once this happens an all out war is quickly started and alliances form very quickly. Later on Don Corleone is shot once again but this time fatally. This means Michael will inherit the business this makes him say “It’s all about family.” And after what I would like to describe as a wild goose chase on steroids he takes all of his family to Las Vegas so the other families in New York can take it easy and so the Corleones can once again rise to power.
Again I believe that this book is very important and can still be used today because it gives us a very detailed preview of what being around when the mafia was very prevalent would’ve been like. And the biggest lesson that I took out of the book is always being there for family. I feel that this next quote supports this well, “ A man who can’t raise his kids will never be a real man” (page 62 part I) this proves just how much being there for family meant to the people in this culture. Historical connections
By: Owen Wing I am reading “The Godfather” which takes place in the 1940’s into the late 50’s. Mainly my book is based on how the Mafia gained as much power as they could. Although my book is fiction the Corleone family that the book is based on is based around one of the five major Mafia families, the Borgia family. My book explains in detail many different things that the Mafia did to gain power, make money, and spread fear. During the 40’s in the United States many bad things had happened to the economy and not to mention we were in the middle of a World War. And during the 50’s the U.S. was having troubles with Russia which led to the mafia being able to gain power easily. Many different things that happened in my book were also taking place in real life. Such as a man in the story came to the Godfather asking for help because his daughter had been assaulted by two men and the Social System had not worked out the way the man had wanted it to. So the man asked him to hurt them. Which was something the mafia would do. They would hurt or kill people who did not agree with them or did something the mafia did not like, and this was one way of instilling fear in the general population. The US government was aware of this and tried to stop it but the mafia had paid people off and made friendships with people of power to ensure they couldn’t get in trouble or to have people not find out. The people in my book think there is nothing wrong with it because that’s what they were used to. Like I said earlier many connections can be made but one that I would like to point out is how the mafia made money. They started out in the 20’s with the distribution of illegal liquor during the prohibition. Then when prohibition ended they moved to other things like illegal gambling or creating a monopoly in the drug industry. And due to all the good relationships they had with people in the government they couldn’t be stopped very easily which is essentially how the grew in size and power. Mentors are a necessity for some kids.“1 in 3 young people will grow up without a mentor.”(Mentor 2018) True, there are many kids who don’t need mentors, and thus, don’t get any, but, there are those who genuinely need mentors for both educational and psychological support. Many of said children don’t get any. Mentors are people, either student or adult, who help a student in need. The mentor can guide the student in their studies, be a friend, or even play with them. Being a mentor means supporting a student who needs support, but, unfortunately, there aren’t enough mentors
We are interested in helping children of younger ages with their educational needs, and becoming friends with them. We understand that lack of education is a major problem in today’s society, however common or rare it is. Education is more valuable than many people think. In a world with ever-accelerating technology, and knowledge at our fingertips, children need to be able to gather, process, and put information that they gain to use. We believe that Education is a topic that is important to all people around the globe, and should be a topic commonly talked about when problems arise. Now, is one of those times. One day, a world where only the rich few, who are born into a world where only they get mentors and proper education might exist. And in that world, the less fortunate people descend into a pit of uneducation that they won’t be able to get out of without help. This is a world that we are trying to avoid, and the only way we can be sure, is to bring all types of people to equal positions in education. Surely, you want to avoid a place like that, don’t you? The issue is that there are not enough people mentoring, so not enough kids get the education they deserve. This problem as been going on ever since people have started to care about their education and since we’ve transitioned to the digital age. For some kids, learning on a screen is too hard, so when “everything goes digital”, they have trouble learning. They need face to face learning but it is a whole lot harder than it sounds. The cost of a mentor can be expensive, especially for families living off of minimum wage. “kids born into less-stable families are at much higher risk for bad outcomes in life – education, health, income, you name it.”(Dubner 2017) Some kids can’t pay online to be taught by a computer that they can’t ask questions to. You have to take into account that one of the reasons kids get mentored online is because it is a lot easier for the company to be online than having to hire someone and have them mentor. The company will make more money and will take less time to establish a mentoring program. After all, time is money. Other kids, (specifically those who request mentors or are recommended for them, but don’t get any) aren’t able to get the full experience that they could have with a mentor. In Wake County there are many different mentoring programs. Ages vary, but most of the Mentees range from Elementary to High School.(Wake County Network of Care 2018) Many of these programs include educational aspects and also try to help the kids find a better quality of life. A tutor is someone that helps you with homework and helps you study. One thing that makes mentoring better than plain tutoring programs is that the mentor acts like an older sibling or a friend, which helps build a stronger connection. Most mentorship programs around the triangle use mentors. A few of these mentorship programs also help to build a stronger faith. A large part of all of these programs is to have mentors be there for someone when they might not have anyone to support them at home. After our research in the mentorship programs in North Carolina, we found that there are multiple programs helping our community, but we believe there is always more that can be done. We feel that there is still a need for help, even with all the organizations that are helping. What most groups do is help the kids after school. A group like this is the Boys and Girls club. They have kids, usually Elementary School through Middle school age, come to their organizations after school and help them with their homework and studies. They also teach the students structure and learning methods since most kids in this program do not come from the best areas, and thus, aren’t taught such things. We feel that we should go to the schools during the school day and understand how they feel in school. Also, we can actively help them understand the information they are given during the school day, instead of helping them after school. We could also find out vital details such as what makes them succeed and what makes them struggle. As an 8th grade middle school student, I, and other students, can help by offering volunteer mentoring services to youth (elementary school children) at their various schools. At these schools, we could read books to children, help young students with basic math, and more importantly, provide support. The benefits of giving information to the young students or helping them to understand certain information are tremendous. Children with mentors have increased intellectual ability, more self confidence, and a healthier social attitude. There are two major categories where students with mentors profit; academic and non-academic. On the academic side, mentored children can learn to have more, higher quality participation as well as intellectual gains. These children can also learn about future planning and goal setting as well as having more self confidence and a better social attitude. We propose that we send 15-20 mentors to Bugg Elementary for the Bugg Expo. (You can find our action plan here: Action Plan) According to this source, mentoring in a youth school setting is shown to be a “cost-efficient way of increasing the positive relationships students have in their lives, while also having the potential to boost factors that can lead to educational success, such as connectedness to the school environment and peers, improved relationships with teachers and staff, improved feelings of academic competence, and greater access and use of other supports, such as tutoring, credit tracking, counseling, and postsecondary planning.” This site also includes lots of studies about school based mentoring that is beneficial/important information to know. Along with providing support educationally, student mentors can act as friends to support and provide guidance. “Although it takes place at schools, our School-Based Mentoring program isn’t limited to the classroom. Of course, some Littles do talk with their Bigs about class, or do homework, or read together, but it’s perfectly fine to shoot hoops in the gym or play on the playground. At the end of the day, it's really all about starting a friendship, providing guidance and inspiring them to reach their potential. (Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, 2013b)” Work Cited “School Based Mentoring.” National Mentoring Resource Center, 2017. 2018 <http://www.nationalmentoringresourcecenter.org/index.php/what-works-nin- mentoring/key-topics.html?layout=edit&id=182> Bayer, Amanda, Grossman, Jean, and DuBois, David. “School-Based Mentoring Programs: Using Volunteers to Improve the Academic Outcomes of Underserved Students.” Aug. 2013 24 Jan. 2018 <https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/School-Based%20Mentoring_Programs.pdf> Gordon, Janet, Downey, Jane, and Bangert, Art. “Effects of a School-Based Mentoring Program on School Behavior and Measures of Adolescent Connectedness.”School Community Journal, vol. 23, no. 2, 2013 <https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1028864.pdf>Accessed 26 Jan. 2018 Dubner, Stephen. “When Helping Hurts” Freakonomics. July 12, 2017. January 29, 2018 <http://freakonomics.com/podcast/when-helping-hurts/> “Mentoring Impact” Mentor. 2018. Jan. 24 2018 <http://www.mentoring.org/why-mentoring/mentoring-impact/> “Wake Network of Care Mentoring Program” Wake Network of Care. 2018. Jan. 24 2018<http://wake.nc.networkofcare.org/mh/services/subcategory.aspx?tax=PH -1400.5000> “Benefits of Mentoring” Mentoring Partnership. 2018. Jan 26 2018 <http://www.ncmentoring.org/about-mentoring/impact/> https://www.dur.ac.uk/hr/mentoring/mentoringguidelines/mentoringbenefits/ Mrs. Cowan at Bugg Elementary School [email protected] http://www.wral.com/come-to-this-island-before-it-disappears/17276186/
I found this article related not only to our community but to the rest of the world because this is a sign that global warming isn’t a joke and people are already being affected by it. Some people don’t believe that global warming is real and that it’s not a big deal because it will never affect them. And by reading this article i realized that some points in the world will soon be washed away due to rising sea levels and polar ice caps melting.And I think that’s somewhat scary. And I’m interested in this because I’ve never realized how serious this subject is. Even though this may not affect my community directly I feel that I should make this topic better known because this is a big deal and if we don’t do anything to prevent the amount of dirty energy we use this could eventually affect us. And when I said dirty energy that is energy produced by burning coal or something along the lines of that. But to possibly slow down or prevent global warming affecting more people than it already has we could start using clean energy such as solar power or wind turbines. I believe that the popular game Madden Mobile could help you form a broad range of life skills. If you don’t know what Madden Mobile is, I’ll help explain it. It is a mobile game that you get to make your own football team out of cards you collect. These cards consist of bronze cards, silver cards, gold cards, and elite cards which are the best cards. These cards have overall points and the higher the cards points the higher your team overall will be. One example I have of how Madden Mobile can help produce life skills, is that Madden Mobile helps you learn how to earn, save, and invest in money. In the game you use virtual money called Madden Mobile coins. You can earn any amount of coins imaginable in the game. Using my economic knowledge along with my knowledge of the game, I have made many different methods to help make me money. A plus to using the methods that I have made is that you can earn 15,000 to 50,000 coins in a matter of minutes. Therefore one skill that Madden Mobile teaches you is how to make, spend, and save money. As I stated in the paragraph above Madden Mobile helps you learn how to make money, but the most important thing is not making it, but being smart with what you decide to do with the coins. For example I like to save my money, as of right now in the game I have about 1,300,000 coins. I like to save my money and invest in packs when they release limited edition players. I feel that this game teaches you to save money because it gives you the option to either save up your money and have many options to thrive in the game or you could spend all your money and struggle to just make the money back. I think that this relates to life because you can either set yourself up well and give yourself a wide variety of things you can afford or you could spend all of your money and you might be living fine but but you wouldn’t have a lot of wiggle room to do what you want. Another point that I would like to point out is that Madden can help teach you how to spend your money. This lesson is very similar to my previous point, but different at the same time. I believe that in the game you can save your money and that’s good but it gets to a point to where you have you have to spend money in order for you to have a good team. The options that the game gives you is that you can either spend all of your money on packs of players, which is a gamble but it could pay off or you could go into the auction house and buy the individual players that you want, which I like to do because not only do you know who the player is that you’re getting is but you also know the cost of the player. And this relates to real life because you could go out and spend a ton of money on something that you don't necessarily want or what you will truly get out of the package or go to the store, buy what you need and go on with your life. In conclusion I believe that the game Madden Mobile helps build life skills. These skills all revolve around money issues. But to understand these skills you have to understand what you're doing and take the game to your advantage to truly capture and use these skills in real life. I have used this game to take advantage of these skills and am looking into things to invest in, such as the stock market. I hope that this helps you hone in your inner business person in the game and in real life. |
AuthorMy name is Owen Wing and I am a student athlete ArchivesCategories |