staring out my window
I am staring out my window, thinking.
"Will it always be like this," I wonder?
Where will I be next year? Or in 20 years? Who will I be with? When will it change?
Will I live in a fabulous villa in Tuscany? Spending my days, staring out at the beautiful Italian countryside, approving continental dinner party menu's and calligraphied place settings on thick pressed parchment, kissing my beautiful children before the nanny takes them poolside to play?
Will I move to some assembly line suburb, live in a new house, identical to the twenty around it, in some middle class development? Blasting Janis Joplin as I speed through Anytown, USA?
What a nightmare.
I could never have been that girl, you know? It was never my destiny. And my parents, they get it. I couldn't have stayed in that town, with those people. I wasn't one of them. I pined for years, planning the escape. My escape. And my parents knew it.
When I go back, I see what could have happened if I had not worked to get out. If I had given in and taken the easy road.
I would live in a modern, aluminum-sided housing development near that tragic clique of girls I ran around with...the ones with whom I slouched against the lockers in high school, late for class and not caring, maliciously sticking our feet out and tripping the nerds as they walked by...the ones I let dip their fingers into my brand-spanking new pot of Clinque lip gloss. The ones I played the game with - they thought I was one of them. They didn't know that even at 14 and 15 and 16 and 17 - the whole time - I was just playing along. I had no intention of being one of them.
It's possible that I would drive one of those terribly unfashionable grocery-go-getting minivan contraptions, fitting squirming children for their Buster Browns while my husband wore cheap, off-the-rack suits and even worse polyster ties to his 35K salaried job at which he was equally unhappy.
I would buy ground beef when it went on sale and freeze it. I would watch the Home Shopping Network and when I saw one of those contraptions that holds lint brushes and sewing kit utensils, maybe I would buy it because my husband had promised a long-overdue honeymoon.
When the Founding Fathers got together at Philadelphia to draft the Constitution, they had many different views and opinions as to how to govern our country. At the convention, the founders fought over the issues of slavery, representation and the Congress’s powers. Their personal lives had influenced their ideas and some of the compromises made at the Constitutional Convention. The founders’ different personal experiences, economic backgrounds, and coming from states of different sizes, economy and needs, led to the creation of the Three-Fifths Compromise, The Great Compromise, and the Slave Trade Compromise.
During the birth of the new nation, the Founding Fathers sought to construct a system of checks and balances which were catalyzed by the common fear of tyrannical government and based upon the ideologies of the Enlightenment. In 1787, while the infant nation was wobbling on the weak footings of the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention was adjourned and disputes around power and representation mustered new plans for the future. Although the Convention intended to revise and rework the Articles, James Madison, alongside...
The 1787 Constitutional Convention was paramount in unifying the states after the Revolutionary War. However, in order to do so, the convention had to compromise on many issues instead of addressing them with all due haste. This caused the convention to leave many issues unresolved. Most notably were the issues of slavery, race, secession, and states’ rights. Through the Civil War and the Reconstruction, these issues were resolved, and in the process the powers of the federal government were greatly expanded.
The south and the north made numerous compromises to create a great nation. The first indirect compromise was when the constitution didn’t mention slavery in the constitution, they left that for the states to deal with. After years after when the congress decide to stop the slave trade in 1808, they gave the south time to adjust to this but they new that by the time the slave trade died line was over the slave would have reproduces and they would have more slaves. Third compromise gave the south more power. They had notice that they had less seats in the house of representative. States with the most slaves, for instance Virginia and Maryland, were get out number in the house of representative, so the compromised to have the slave counted as part of the population. They got three counts for every five slaves. This helped balance the house of representative.
The delegates chosen to represent their states on May 25, 1787 at the Constitutional Convention could never have imagined the lasting impact they would have on the nation for over 200 years. These men from diverse upbringings and unique educational backgrounds came together to forge a nation. From the chaos and change of the old world, they were able to bring forth a new nation founded on liberty. It is hard to overrate the amount of foresight and knowledge needed by the Framers of the Constitution in constructing a document that would guide a new nation through times of peace and upheaval.
The debates, arguments and final compromises reached during and after the Constitutional Convention of 1787 resulted in the creation of the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights which have governed our great nation for over 200 years. But, the debates and arguments between those who favor a strong government and those who favor more power for the states did not end with the ratification of the Constitution. They have continued through the years and can be seen in the health care controversy that is currently being debated.
On further analysis, most of the issues within the document were due to vast cultural, racial, and economic lifestyles that our country did and will continue to support, as unintentional as it may be. This document lessened some of those issues and attempted to accommodate the requests of all states. However, Elitist framers manipulated the idea of a constitution in order to protect their economic interests and the interests of their fellow white land and slave owning men' by restricting the voices of women, slaves, indentured servants and others.
even if it meant going somewhere that I had always hated going before. When I
Uvalic, M. (2002, July). Regional Cooperation and the Enlargement of the European Union: Lessons Learned? International Political Science Review, 23(3), 319-333.
The desire to travel down both paths is expressed and is not unusual. The speaker of this poem realizes that the decision is not just a temporary one and he "doubted if I should ever come back.
After WWII, many politically influential people saw a need to create some form of interdependence between the nation states of Europe as a means to preventing further war (Watts, 2008: p6). In 1951 Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg all signed the Treaty of Paris creating the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC); the beginnings of an integrated Europe which has seen many changes since its creation (Thody, 1997: p1). Today it has become the highly integrated European Union with 28 member states, 18 of which share a single currency (Archick, 2014: p1). The process of EU integration is a complex one, as can be seen in its history and will surely be seen in its future. There is no simple explanation that can successfully explain the growth of the EU from a economic community of six nation states to the political and economic union it has become today. However there are two competing theories for explaining EU integration that give opposing views on the matter, neo-functionalism and intergovernmentalism. In this essay I will examine both theories and attempt to reach a conclusion if either successfully explains EU integration.
Europe has a history of war and conflict that predates living memory and the idea of a united Europe is something that appears repeatedly in that history. Hitler, Napoleon, and the many Roman Emperors all sought a united Europe. Their quests although in many ways motivated by a horrifying desire for power sparked the minds of philosophers and other political thinkers to imagine Europe united in harmony and peace despite national differences. Today we have the European Union which is quite unique. After the horrors, bloodshed, and economic disaster of the twentieth century, in a desire for peace and harmony and economic and political prosperity twenty-seven states have limited their national sovereignty.2 With national interests and ambition still in mind these countries see the European Union and supranational governance and the benefits of peace and prosperity therein as something worthwhile. However, in the history of European integration there has been much conflict and Euroskepticism. Some see unity in diversity and diversity in unity as impossible, and the existence of differentiation in the EU as highly problematic. However, differentiation in the European Union’s integration process is not the hindrance it is often defined as, rather it creates further cooperation in Europe bringing the European Union closer to its objectives of peace, and economic and political growth, resulting in a more effective and efficient bureaucracy. Differentiation in the EU’s integration process has created more successful integration as it allows the nations who wish t...
The enlargement of the European Union (EU) in 2004 and 2007 has been termed as the largest single expansion of the EU with a total of 12 new member states – bringing the number of members to 27 – and more than 77 million citizens joining the Commission (Murphy 2006, Neueder 2003, Ross 2011). A majority of the new member states in this enlargement are from the eastern part of the continent and were countries that had just emerged from communist economies (EC 2009, Ross 2011), although overall, the enlargement also saw new member states from very different economic, social and political compared to that of the old member states (EC 2009, Ross 2011). This enlargement was also a historical significance in European history, for it saw the reunification of Europe since the Cold War in a world of increasing globalization (EC 2009, Mulle et al. 2013, Ross 2011). For that, overall, this enlargement is considered by many to have been a great success for the EU and its citizens but it is not without its problems and challenges (EC 2009, Mulle et al. 2013, Ross 2011). This essay will thus examine the impact of the 2004/2007 enlargements from two perspectives: firstly, the impact of the enlargements on the EU as a whole, and thereafter, how the enlargements have affected the new member states that were acceded during the 2004/2007 periods. Included in the essay will be the extent of their integration into the EU and how being a part of the Commission has contributed to their development as nation states. Following that, this essay will then evaluate the overall success of the enlargement process and whether the EU or the new member states have both benefited from the accessions or whether the enlargement has only proven advantageous to one th...
Much of the political case for regional economic integration stems from national security. Another case study provided by Hill is the European Union. The nation states of Western Europe bonded together in an effort to deal with the political giants of the USSR to the east and the USA to the west. Further, regional economic integration can facilitate political harmony between nations due to their increased level of
Tomorrow, the day after today. It is an indefinite time in the future. One question many people have on their minds is, what does tomorrow hold in store for me? What “if tomorrow never comes”, in the words of a song by the country-artist, Garth Brooks. Could I say I finished everything I started, or did I accomplish everything that I always wanted to do, but never did for fear of it being too risky?