Blog #15 Life: The Book & American History

Part 1

Off the top of my head I know that America had to come up with thier own factories to create their weapons and other necessities during WW2. It created so many jobs for women-who weren't fighting in the war- and basically ended the great depression. "American industry was revitalized by the war, and many sectors were by 1945 either sharply oriented to defense production (for example, aerospace and electronics) or completely dependent on it (atomic energy)." The way that technology was advanced during the Industrialization time period set expectations that scientists would continue their new innovations in the coming future.

Before World War II was the Great Depression which completely destabilized the economy and the governments.

"In the United States, President Franklin Roosevelt promised, less dramatically, to enact a "New Deal" which would essentially reconstruct American capitalism and governance on a new basis. As it waxed and waned between 1933 and 1940, Roosevelt's New Deal mitigated some effects of the Great Depression, but did not end the economic crisis. In 1939, when World War II erupted in Europe with Germany's invasion of Poland, numerous economic indicators suggested that the United States was still deeply mired in the depression."

Many people were unemployed during the Great Depression which caused there to be little to no money for families and business owners which resulted in the meltdown of the economy in the 1930s. What I talked about before how when WWII came new businesses had to be opened which created tons of jobs for everyone to support the war, the economy sprang back up into action. The government controlled the economy through spending and consumptions is something that I found that I think is wierd because isn't spendings and consumptions equivalent to economics?

Part 2

A compelling character has some sort of profound connection of the main idea of the story: A patient, a doctor, a scientist, a politician, etc. An example of this is Francis Collins. Many of the articles in the New Yorker that we read in class include Francis Collins as a character because of the profound research and discoveries he has conducted in the science field.

An interesting plot has a 'who, what, when, where, and why' to it. The who and the what are probably introduced in the first paragraph, then later on disected into more detailed sections about who is invovled, what the actual topic is, the effect of the topic, the statistics of the topic, and real life connections; economical connections, cultural connections, historical connections, and political/governmental connections. For example in the article called Open Channels in the New Yorker, it introduces Chrissy, who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and deals with many conflicts in her every day life.

Specifics steps taken are introducing a character humbly, then later on revealing what went wrong with that character (for chrissy it was cystic fibrosis). Then they go into a little bit of background info of cystic fibrosis. they talk about how their is experimental drugs, but instead of flat out saying "There is an Experimental drug people take", they say something along the lines of: Chrissy was one of the 19 people who were involved in the Vertex's experimental drug project." Then they involve quotes from her to have actual results instead of saying oh it worked! Later on they talk more in depth about the experimental drug and what companies/peoples/groups that have made progress. They also have quotes from the peoples/organizations/groups and end with yet another character, this time a child.

The characters in many of these articles have a wide variety of personalities. Some are young and playful while others are middle aged and weary. I remember one of the quotes that was used in Open Channels that almost ANYONE should be able to connect to was when Chrissy said something along the lines of: Once you feel what it's like to be normal, your abnormality sucks. Those definately weren't the exact words, but that was the main point of the quote. They also used things where Chrissy went to church and her nephew who most likely doesnt understand cystic fibrosis was excited when he noticed Chrissy wasn't coughing as often as she used to. Its something that a lot of people can connect to because when a young child notices something, it must really be a huge improvement especially if its something complex as her disease. You also can imagine the reassurance that Chrissy felt to hear her nephew say that.