Woody Guthrie Essay -- Biography Biographies

Woody Guthrie   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Woody Guthrie, born Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, was born in Okemah, Oklahoma in 1912. When he was 16 he began to travel around the United States (Feather 428). He had a great love for music and soon began writing his own songs about the Great Depression and the treatment of the migrant workers, who were forced to move west because of the Dust Bowl.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  His music greatly influenced many people across the country. However, Woody never let the fame go to his head.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"When Woody Guthrie was singing hillbilly songs on a little Los Angeles radio station in the late 1930’s, he used to mail out a small mimeographed songbook to listeners who wanted the words to his songs, On the bottom page appeared the following: ‘This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  we wanted to do.’†(qtd. Pete Seeger www.geocities.com/Nashville/ 3448/guthrie.html) Woody was very passionate about his causes. He felt very strongly about the mistreatment of the migrant workers, probably because he was himself an â€Å"Okie†. His works served as inspiration for musicians like Bob Dylan and Pete Reeves 2 Seeger and not to mention â€Å"countless, less-famous others† (www.geocities.com/Nashville3448 guthrie.html) ...

Survival Skills In South Central LA

While a majority of adults continually struggle to cope with the occurrence Of death, this Story tells a tale of children who have practically become accustomed to it. Beauty provides a distinct look at this urban school setting through her inside view of student emotions, evidence of pain within the kids, and the feelings that she evokes from the audience despite her straightforward tone. (simple) While first reading about Ms. Beauty and her inside story into this previously uncharted territory, sensed as though she was a woman who possessed a very intimate bond with the students.In the story, when describing what occurred on days when the students mourned someone who was killed, Ms. Beauty notes that â€Å"boys lingered over handshakes and looked into my eyes solemnly. Girls threw their arms around me and wordlessly moved away. No one said enough. † (Beauty; par. 5). A majority of her descriptions of students and events, as well as her diction, seem somewhat heartfelt yet a bit plainly stated on the surface; however, the cultural distance between Ms. Beauty and the students seemingly increases the more we observe how she interacts with them. When Ms.Beauty discusses how the kids hugged her, the description actually makes her seem somewhat aloof. The way that the author words the sentence makes it seem as though the children approach her with emotions and she is simply present, receiving the actions. As a teacher, Beauty never necessarily makes a huge effort to help the student's cope with these devastating loses, except in the case of Dander where Ms. Beauty does display some emotional involvement. On the day of this peculiar interaction between student and teacher, Beauty â€Å"was not prepared for the sight one day f Dander, standing alone behind the stairwell. (Beauty; par. 6). However, even in this case we see her as an outsider looking in: when a counselor arrives after a failed attempt to comfort her student, Ms. Beauty â€Å"watched them go wi th a mixture of relief and dread. Out of [her] hands. † She obviously had worthy intentions to comfort Dander, but the situation seemed to be bigger than anything she could resolve. Ms. Beats trustworthiness becomes another important factor to focus our attention on and her illustration of events keys us into the devastation that sakes place in South Central Los Angels.The story itself does not appear to include any influence of bias, but the author narrates from a personal point of view and therefore the article contains her opinions and viewpoints on the matter. Ms. Beauty gives credible information because she witnessed all of these hardships and events first-hand; she offers highly trust;rotor information in comparison to, for example, an internet news columnist who would write about different schools in Los Angels. When narrating, she delivers a subjective point of view that would not be attainable from an outside source.The tone throughout the article delivers a sense of authority that is unmatched to anything Vive ever read before, somehow conveying emotion in such a nondescript manner. While describing the tale of events, Beauty utilizes fairly straight forward language. When recounting Dander's story of false accusation, she gives evidence to the type of misfortune that falls upon the shoulders of young teens in this area. The story of Dander evokes both logic and sympathy because no child should have to suffer this type of harassment and blame, especially not in Dander's case because he ad such good intentions of standing up for his sister.Pathos lingers throughout this recap of Dander's accusations When discussing the accusations, the Beauty says that Dander â€Å"was taken into custody, where he was told they already had evidence that he'd killed the boy and were just looking for a confession. The smartest thing he could do, they told him, was to confess, so they could get his sentence down to a few years. If he refused, he would get life. à ¢â‚¬  (Beauty; par. 16). This section of the story really resonated with me, and cannot imagine a person falsely accusing me of murder or coaxed into making reparations for a crime of which did not take part in.Although it appears that Beauty lacks the same cultural background as the students, believe that she could have written her story with more conviction, urging readers to reach out to the hopeless children. Through researching, I found out about multiple organizations and charities that help motivate inner-city kids to graduate high school. When Beauty talked about her â€Å"heavy- footed student who looked too old for ninth grad' (Beauty; par. 3), it made me realize that what some of these students needed was a ray of hope in heir violence-filled surroundings.One charity called the I Have A Dream Foundation pledges college education funding for kids who graduate high school, and this would be a great thing for Beauty to have introduced into the school. Focusing their effort s into schoolwork and attempting to make something out of their lives might be just the spark that South Central Los Angels would need to eliminate teen violence. Beats emotional involvement with her students is never quite enough; her aloofness, insensitivity, and difference in cultural upbringing make it difficult for her to innocent on a deep level with her students.

Exchange Systems, Trade Networks, and Archaeology

An exchange system or trade network can be defined as any manner in which consumers connect with producers. Regional exchange studies in archaeology describe the networks that people used to gain, barter for, purchase, or otherwise obtain raw material, goods, services and ideas from the producers or sources, and to move those goods across the landscape. The purpose of exchange systems can be to fulfill both basic and luxury needs. Archaeologists identify networks of exchange by using a variety of analytical techniques on material culture, and by identifying raw material quarries and manufacturing techniques for specific types of artifacts. Exchange systems have been a focus of archaeological research since the mid-19th century  when chemical analyses were first used to identify the distribution of metal artifacts from central Europe. One pioneer study is that of archaeologist Anna Shepard who during the 1930s and 40s used the presence of mineral inclusions in pottery sherds to provide evidence for a widespread trade and exchange network throughout the southwestern United States. Economic Anthropology The underpinnings of the exchange systems research were strongly influenced by Karl Polyani in the 1940s and 50s. Polyani, an economic anthropologist, described three types of trading exchange: reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange. Reciprocity and redistribution, said Polyani, are methods that are embedded in long-range relationships that imply trust and confidence: markets, on the other hand, are self-regulating and disembedded from trust relationships between producers and consumers. Reciprocity is a behavioral system of trade, which is based on the more or less equal sharing of goods and services. Reciprocity could be defined simply as you scratch my back, Ill scratch yours: you do something for me, Ill reciprocate by doing something for you. Ill watch your cows, youll provide my family with milk.Redistribution involves a collection point from which goods are apportioned out. In a typical redistribution system, a village chief collects a percentage of the produce in a village, and provides it to members of the group based on need, gifts, feasting: any one of a number of etiquette rules that have been established in a given society.Market exchange involves an organized institution, in which goods producers congregate at specified locations at specified times. Either barter or money exchange is involved ​in order to allow consumers to obtain required goods and services from purveyors. Polyani himself argued that markets may or may not be integrated within c ommunity networks. Identifying Exchange Networks Anthropologists can go into a community and determine the existing exchange networks by talking to the local residents and observing the processes: but archaeologists must work from what David Clarke once called indirect traces in bad samples. Pioneers in the archaeological study of exchange systems include Colin Renfrew, who argued that it was important to study trade because the institution of a trade network is a causal factor for cultural change. Archaeological evidence for the movement of goods across the landscape has been identified by a series of technological innovations, building from Anna Shepards research. In general, sourcing artifacts—identifying where a particular raw material came from—involves a series of laboratory tests on artifacts which are then compared to known similar materials. Chemical analysis techniques used to identify raw material sources include Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and various spectrographic methods, among a wide and growing number of laboratory techniques. In addition to identifying the source or quarry where raw materials were obtained, chemical analysis can also identify similarities in pottery types or other sorts of finished goods, thus determining whether the finished goods were created locally or brought in from a distant location. Using a variety of methods, archaeologists can identify whether a pot that looks as if it were made in a different town is truly an import, or rather a locally made copy. Markets and Distribution Systems Market locations, both prehistorically and historically, are often located in public plazas or town squares, open spaces shared by a community and common to nearly every society on the planet. Such markets often rotate: market day in a given community may be every Tuesday and in a neighboring community every Wednesday. Archaeological evidence of such use of communal plazas is difficult to ascertain  because typically plazas are cleaned and used for a wide variety of purposes. Itinerant traders such as the pochteca of Mesoamerica have been identified archaeologically through iconography on written documents and monuments such as stele  as well as by the types of artifacts left in burials (grave goods). Caravan routes have been identified in numerous places archaeologically, most famously as part of the Silk Road connecting Asia and Europe. Archaeological evidence seems to suggest that trade networks were much of the driving force behind the construction of roads, whether wheeled vehicles were available or not. Diffusion of Ideas Exchange systems are also the way ideas and innovations are communicated across the landscape. But thats a whole other article. Sources Colburn CS. 2008. Exotica and the  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹Early Minoan Elite: Eastern Imports in Prepalatial Crete. American Journal of Archaeology 112(2):203-224.Gemici K. 2008. Karl Polanyi and the antinomies of embeddedness. Socio-Economic Review 6(1):5-33.Renfrew C. 1977. Alternative models for exchange and spatial distribution. In. In: Earle TK, and Ericson JE, editors. Exchange Systems In Prehistory. New York: Academic Press. p 71-90.Shortland A, Rogers N, and Eremin K. 2007. Trace element discriminants between Egyptian and Mesopotamian Late Bronze Age glasses. Journal of Archaeological Science 34(5):781-789.