Thoughts

The following narrative is John Steinbeck's account of the working class during the Great Depression, as relayed in The Grapes of Wrath . In the 1930s, the price of produce dropped, which left small farm owners with inadequate income to remain solvent. Owners of larger farms then purchased these smaller plots, which consolidated land under a relative few corporations. These corporations were able to remain profitable because they also controlled canneries in which the unneeded and unprofitable fruit could be canned, stored, and sold later when produce prices rose. Migrant families from the eastern part of the United States, in the meantime, poured into California on hearing of plentiful work as farm hands. So numerous were these Okies, as they were derogatorily named, that they competed for the few jobs available on the corporate farms. Moreover, farm owners cut the wages of those who did find work, knowing that laborers would choose a job that offered something rather than starv...

The 1890s were trying times for the United States. Labor disputes, race conflict, and economic depression were realities that formed the backdrop of an event that would help define this country as an international power in the early twentieth century: the Spanish-American War. This war, declared in 1898 first by Spain and then by the U.S., had its source with events in Cuba. Spain had colonized that country since the early sixteenth century, and it held in the Spanish mind a special place as God's New World gift for driving the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. Two major conflicts in the middle and late nineteenth century threatened Spanish sovereignty, however. The latter, beginning in 1895, involved a three-pronged invasion by Cuban rebels and was intended to deliver a decisive blow to Spanish control there. While only one of the rebel forces actually landed on the island, however, the rebel leader Jose Marti decided to pursue the insurrection anyway. The...

I remember, having recently graduated high school, asking myself that if I could throw all my energy into developing one talent, what that would be. Considering the options, I decided that nothing would develop me more than reading. With the knowledge I would develop in my studies, I thought, I could learn a range of skills that would be more useful than any I would learn from another pursuit. It suited me, too, because for the first time in my life, I liked reading. Thus, I took up the task of reading, learning all I could from my college classes in order to be a thoughtful, informed, and useful person. Over time, I found that others had set themselves to the same task. In fact, the very discipline I chose-- history-- proved to me that men had long ago not only developed themselves, but had gone much further and had thought about the great problems of the world. They had built in their minds ideal societies with equally shared resources, perfect prisons, satisfied subjects, and equa...

His name was Harold. Tall, thin, and disheveled, he was sitting alone on a bench near the downtown movie theater, extending his empty Starbucks cup while asking for change. Later, he told Dennis he looked like the "married-with-kids" type, which is ostensibly why Harold asked him. After he told Harold he wouldn't give money, Dennis asked him if he was hungry. He said yes, so Dennis said he'd get him something to eat and be back. Surprised by this, Harold asked where he'd go, then remembered there was a McDonald's nearby. He then asked if Dennis would mind if he came with him, being that the homeless shelter he used was just past the restaurant. Perhaps Dennis was unwise to do this, but something in him told him this guy was okay. Harold's direct, unassuming manner gave Dennis the sense that he truly only wanted to get home on a full stomach. More importantly, Dennis was bigger than Harold, so he thought he could take him if anything happen...

Few people enjoy the sound of silverware scraping porcelain. It is worse even than the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard because you are often enjoying food when it occurs, which interrupts the pleasure of food and family. It may not, in fact, be all-too shocking to hear that eliminating this horrid sound will, according to my calculations, end all human warfare and usher in an era of peace. Here is why: all conflicts start because individuals are not raised in peace-loving homes. A child accidentally scrapes his porcelain plate with a knife, which causes the elder sister to wince. Noticing this response, the child laughs and, wanting to reproduce his pleasure, scrapes again. The sister then sucks in her breath sharply and tells the little one to stop. Mother and father, having also been raised in porcelain-scraping homes, begin to laugh, encouraging the child to scrape even more profusely. Incensed, said sister-- at a loss now as to how to counteract her brother's waywar...