Eulogy for Mother
The Cost
Death is not too high a price to pay
for having lived. Mountains never die,
nor do the seas or rocks or endless sky.
Through countless centuries of time, they stay
eternal, deathless. Yet they never live!
If choice were there, I would not hesitate
to choose mortality. Whatever Fate
demanded in return for life I’d give,
for never to have seen the fertile plains
nor heard the winds nor felt the warm sun on sands
beneath a salty sea, not touched the hands
of those I love – without these, all the gains
of timelessness would not be worth a day
of living and of loving; come what may.”
- Dorothy N. Monroe -
It is hard to give a eulogy for one’s parent. More than the death of a classmate or sibling, the death of a parent is not only a loss, but also a reminder that we are all following an inevitable path. We are all “Outrunning Our Shadow” as her friend Fred Hill so provocatively titled his book.
As Dorothy N. Monroe’s poem, printed in your program, says: “Death is not too high a price to pay for having lived."
When my father died, I was too young to participate in a meaningful way, so at some level this is my eulogy for him, too.
Mother was born on November 7, 1917 in Louisville. Her mother was an unmarried 17-year-old and Mom was put up for adoption. That may be a surprise to you. It was a surprise to me when I learned about it as an adult. As an infant Mom was adopted by Clyde and Maude Johnson, who named her Doris Eileen.
When Mom was about ten Clyde abandoned his family, and she and her mother moved in with Maude's sister in the Port Fulton neighborhood of Jeffersonville. My Unc and Aunt Smith became Mom's surrogate parents, and she lived with them until she married. A few years later Maude was institutionalized at Craigmont, where she lived for the rest of her life. There is a third marker on the cemetery lot where Mom and Dad are buried for our Grandmother Maude Johnson.
Mother never talked much about this or other aspects of her life. Nor did she want to know the details of other’s lives. She practiced “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” long before it became a catch phrase.
The Missisippi was also managed in New Orleans to limit flooding. This was done through levies that were at first naturally built by the river’s mud flows during floods. Later the levies were built higher and higher to keep the flooding Mississippi into the New Orleans area. But the levies were often ineffective in managing, or led to more flooding. Kelman explains this when they write “With the development in the Mississippi Valley ongoing and artificial banks confining more runoff inside the channel, the river set new high-water marks” (Pg 702). Yet this is not the only example of the failure of Mississippi river management. Only 10 years ago, New Orleans’ levies failed, an example of the inability to control the flooding.
Most of the destructions from the events of August 29th 2005, when Katrina Hit the City Of New Orleans, were not only caused by the storm itself; but also, by failure of the engineering of the levee system protecting the entire infrastructure of the city. The years of poor decision making and avoidance of the levee system led to one of the most catastrophic events in the history of the United States. Throughout our research, we have identified three key players in charge of the levee system design, construction and maintenance. These three organizations are the Unites States Corps of Engineers, the New Orleans Levee District and the Louisiana Department of Transportation. The consequences of the hurricane showed the organizations negligence in the design, construction and maintenance of the protective walls. Later independent sresearch showed that more than 50 levees and food walls failed during the passage of the hurricane. This failure caused the flooding of most of New Orleans and all of ST. Bernard Parish. The Unites States Corps of Engineers had been in charge of the of the levee system and flood walls construction since the 1936 flood act. According to the law, the Louisiana Department of Transportation is in charge to inspect the overall design and engineering practices implemented in the construction of the system. Once the levee systems were finished, they were handed over to the New Orleans Levee District for regular maintenance and periodically inspections. The uncoordinated actions of these three agencies resulted in the complete failure of a system that was supposed to protect the people of New Orleans. The evidence is clear that this catastrophic event did not happened by chance. The uncoordinated response of these...
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans with its fierce intensity, the lives of its inhabitants was forever changed. The winds rose and the waves crashed upon the only security system this, below sea level, city had against the many water systems surrounding it. Most people think that the waves simply rose up over the banks and levees of the city; however, evidence proves this thought wrong. The actual reason New Orleans was flooded was due to poor engineering. According to experts, two thirds of the tragic flooding could have been prevented. Thousands of homes could have been saved if the engineers responsible for building New Orleans’s levees had followed regulatory guidelines.
The category 3 storm changed the lives of the residence who lived there forever. The storm in combination with the fault of the man-made flood protection walls (levee’s) resulted in the death of at least 1,300 people (1). With nearly half the victims over the age of 74, deaths were caused by; drowning, injury/ trauma and heart conditions (2). Hurricane Katrina was one of the most costliest storms to land on American soil, costing around US$135 billion in damages (3). Although the number of deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina are not as high as other natural disasters, Katrina displaced a massive amount of people from their homes, around 85% of the population were displaced directly after the storm hit (6). Being one of the most devastating natural disasters to hit the United States, Hurricane Katrina impacted not only the residence of New Orleans by also many of the surrounding
Betty Ford was born on April 8, 1918 in Chicago. She lived in Denver and
The Army Corps of Engineers were supposed to be the ones that built the levees, and they were supposed to build them strong enough that they would protect the city of New Orleans. However, their engineering was severely faulty. Robert Bea even went as far to say that the levees were the “most tragic failure of a civil engineered system in the history of the United State” (Lee, 2006). The levees were supposed to be built to be seventeen feet below sea level and integrated into an earthen levee, but that did not happen. Colonel Lewis Setliff claims that the levees did not work as “they would have liked” (Lee, 2006). If they were not building them right, though, then they had to know that they were not going to work the way they were supposed to. Benny Pate points out that if they knew there was such a great chance the levees would break, knowingly building them incorrectly was like they were “letting it happen” (Lee, 2006). The people of New Orleans should have been able to expect that the levees would be built right which is why the level of government that appointed the Army Corps of Engineers for this job was neglectful in the prevention of Hurricane Katrina’s
The purpose of this paper is to view Marx's concept of alienation (estranged labour) and
As I grow older, I will attempt to create a life that I can look back on and think, “That was a life worth living.” Recently, my boyfriend’s grandfather passed away. He knew that his last day was near, but he kept saying that he was not sad, for he had lived a long full life (Matthew Morel, personal communication, February 2016). Contrarily, my grandmother, who is still living today, is obviously in a state of
For example, we work 10 to 12-hour work days (Module 10, Alienation at Work). This is true, truck drivers drive for long hours. They are more likely to be alienated since most of their day is occupied on the road delivering loads. Drivers have less power because they need to work, they need to get the job done since work is essential. Karl Marx notes that work is compulsory, not voluntary (Module 10, Marxist Concept of Alienation). For example, drivers are told what loads to deliver they do not chose to do it, rather they are told what to do. Thus, leading to the idea that we are controlled by someone else. Truck drivers are controlled by dispatch and Marx calls this the workers “essence” (Module 10, Marxist Concept of Alienation). What they produce does not belong to them, thus creating alienation from work and the production. Drivers are creating something not for themselves, but for someone else, in particular their employer. Alienation is about how work is organized, we can see that for truck drivers work can be alienating. Drivers tend to be separated and left alone; told what to do.
In conclusion, Marx states that the worker is alienated from his own life as well as individuality. This level of estrangement from one’s own life can be equated to slavery as he cannot think, make decision or plan for his future life but rather the capitalist is his owner. Labor camps tend to characterize workers as objects which should be act or behave as normal human beings but are required to follow a set routine of activities in the production of products.
Theresa Smith was born on December 3, 1925 in Materson, NJ. She died in Williamsville on March 2, 2005, at age 80. Theresa Smith was great grandmother of one, grandmother of five of us, mother of three, sibling of three sisters and two brothers, and wife to one great man, my grandfather, Ron Smith.
Although in this case, the scale was large enough that some observers saw national effects on some categories of goods. The pace of recovery was much slower. The scale overwhelmed FEMA, the federal government’s disaster management program. Louisiana’s state and local governments did not shine. Louisiana generally and New Orleans in particular have lower average incomes than Minnesota or North Dakota. So there was less available cash for immediate recovery spending. Much property was uninsured against flooding. And the bureaucracy took time to get money
Throughout my work experience I have been a witness to various degrees of work alienation. As I continue to gather additional experience in the work environment and engage in discussions with fellow employees, it is clearly evident that there is workplace discontentment and feelings of being taken advantage of. Based on my work experiences to date, I agree with James Rinehart’s claim that forms of alienation are evident in the workplace. They force human beings into modes of behaviour that are unnatural and possibly harmful. I will illustrate that as we live in a capitalist environment, employees have little say or control over decisions made by their employers; workers do not have power over the processes or methods of work; workers lack fulfillment and are not treated fairly in their workplace and class structures are created to show dominance behavior.
Every year many natural disasters happen around the world. In New Orleans, and several other states, a devastating hurricane struck. High speed winds and major flooding caused many people to lose their homes and even their lives. Many people have heard of hurricane Katrina, but not everybody knows what caused it and the affect it had on the United States.
Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Her parents are Vernita Lee and Vernon Winfrey who were 18 and 20 at the time of Oprah’s birth. Her Grandmother who took care of her early in life was Hattie Mae Lee. Oprah's mother moved north to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to find work. She planned to move Oprah there once she had secured a job. Oprah stayed with her grandmother on her farm in Mississippi. (www.about.com, 2000).