Friday, January 24, 2020

Response to the Film William Faulkner: a Life on Paper :: Movie Film Essays

Response to the Film William Faulkner: a Life on Paper While I was watching the documentary William Faulkner, a Life on Paper I found it striking how the different people that were interviewed talked about two different sides of the author William Faulkner. His daughters, Jill Faulkner Sommers and his stepdaughter, spoke mainly about his alcohol abuse and his moodiness whereas Faulkner’s contemporaries from Oxford underlined Faulkner’s generosity and kindness. The documentary shows Faulkner not only as father of Jill and his stepdaughter but also as a father figure for many others. He had to take care of several families at once. At one point Faulkner had seventeen dependents to provide for. Many of the people that were interviewed describe Faulkner as being very generous and always willing to help others even when he had almost nothing himself. One special example is his brother Dean who died in an airplane accident and because Faulkner had bought the plane he apparently felt guilty about the death of his brother for the r est of his life as his sister-in-law says in the interview. The interviews with Faulkner’s daughter Jill and his stepdaughter show a different side of the Nobel Prize-winning author. Jill speaks about her father (whom she calls â€Å"papi†) and his alcohol habits in an objective, distanced way and seems to have accepted the fact that her father was a man who cared about many people, but sometimes â€Å"would have walked on her.† One incident she talks about struck me especially. She remembers that at a party her father was drinking once again and when she asked him to stop he said to her: â€Å"No one remembered Shakespeare’s child†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Even when we take the fact into account that he was drunk at that point, this seems to me a rather cruel thing to say to one’s daughter. Other women, however, seem to have been of great importance in Faulkner’s life among them Joan Williams, a young, aspiring author from Memphis. Talking about her Jill Faulkner Sommers says that her father liked the idea of having a â€Å"protà ©gà ©.† Other women Faulkner seems to have been greatly attached to were his mother and his grandmother. Faulkner dedicated Go Down Moses to another woman he apparently cared about very much, the family â€Å"mammy.† The dedication runs: â€Å"To Mammy Caroline Barr, who was born in slavery and gave to my family a fidelity without stint or calculation of recompense and to my childhood an immeasurable devotion and love.

Thursday, January 16, 2020

The Things They Carried Passage Analysis

â€Å"Spin† Passage: The Things They Carried The function of the passage from the episode â€Å"Spin† is to introduce a different interpretation of the concept of â€Å"boredom,† one that pertains to the war and the soldiers specifically and not often experienced by civilians. The type of boredom described by the narrator in the passage is tenser, and encompasses many more emotions that the Alpha Company comes across.Throughout the passage, the reader gets the idea that the soldiers are not bored in the irritated and uninterested way that most people typically are. Instead, the men are anxious, anticipating the next unpleasant event to come upon them at any moment. The narrator explains, â€Å"You’d try to relax. You’d uncurl your fists and let your thoughts go. Well, you’d think, this isn’t so bad. And right then you’d hear gunfire behind you and your nuts would fly up into your throat and you’d be squealing pig squeals † (O’Brien 34).This description of how the soldiers would behave, with curled fists and apprehensive thoughts, jumping at every noise, proves that they are not nonchalant but hyperaware of their surrounding and on edge. When the narrator describes war as â€Å"boring,† he refers to the redundancy of always worrying, then allowing oneself to relax for a moment before being bombarded with another battle. The first three sentences from the quote have a calm, slow attitude, especially when juxtaposed with â€Å"gunfire,† â€Å"nuts,† and â€Å"pig squeals,† which are harsh, callous words.The way in which O’Brien chose to write that particular quote is similar to the repetitive way that the soldiers wait, making the reader understand to some level what it is like to live that way. As a result, O’Brien uses this passage to introduce a new, atypical definition of the word â€Å"bored,† where it is used as an â€Å"umbrella† word for many other emotions, including anxiety and fear.

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Corporate Tax Evasion Essay example - 690 Words

Corporate Tax Evasion A growing trend in our society today is corporate tax evasion. It has become increasing more common for corporations to pay no or little income tax, and in some cases actually receive money back from the government. It is illegal and therefore deviant by that definition. Corporate tax evasion (using borderline legal means) is widespread. White-collar crime is a term that is usually applied to crimes associated with business that do not involve violence or bodily injury to another person. Corporate tax evasion falls into the category of white collar crime. There are 3 types of corporate income taxes as follows: National 30% of taxable income, Local 20.7% of National Tax, and Enterprise 10.08% of†¦show more content†¦Shelters reduce the corporate tax base and thus raise the burden on other taxpayers. Shelters undermine the vitality of our voluntary tax system. Companies feel obliged to follow the lead of competitors who abuse the tax code in a race to the bottom. The New York State Bar recently highlighted the corrosive effect of shelters, stating: The constant promotion of these frequently artificial transactions breeds significant disrespect for the tax system, encouraging responsible corporate taxpayers to follow the lead of other taxpayers who have engaged in tax advantaged transactions. And shelters divert resources from productive investment in the real economy. As a former tax official, now a leading member of a well-known law firm has said, You cant underestimate how many of Americas greatest minds are being devoted to what economists would all say is totally useless economic activity. These evasion shelters include; Lease-In Lease-Out (LILO) shelters whereby companies attempted to avoid tax through circular transactions. In one extreme case, a company leased a town hall from a Swiss municipality and leased it back the same day. 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