Al Capone

If you think about a prominent gangster, the inevitable image that comes to your mind is the one of Alphonse Capone, wearing an elegant black or dark blue suit and a tilted fedora.

Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Italian immigrants that came to the U.S. seeking a better future. He was a very smart boy at school, but he had trouble following the strict discipline codes of his Catholic school. That's why, when he turned 14, he was expelled for hitting a teacher on her face.

From that moment on, Capone started his career as a gang member. He was part of the Five Points Gang in which he met his mentor, the Mafia Don Johnny Torrio. He continued working with Torrio, building a vast criminal empire with its base in Chicago, called the Chicago Outfit.

Capone's life in Illinois was luxurious and at the same time dangerous. After enemy gangs made an attempt to kill Torrio, in which he was wounded, the Italian mobster decided to go back to his homeland, leaving the whole operations of the Chicago crime syndicate in Capone's hands. Thereafter, Capone dedicated his efforts to consolidate his criminal empire. He was involved in the bootlegging business as well as in running rackets and prostitution cabarets.

A few years later, around the end of the 1920's, Capone was regarded as a celebrity. He said that his business was just about "giving people what they wanted". In 1929, an obscure fact was the starting point of the decline of Capone's career: The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, in which he ordered the murder of seven members of a rival gang led by Bugs Moran. The massacre was a response to an attempt of killing Capone in a drive-by shooting.

After several pictures of the massacre showed everywhere, Capone's reputation began to deteriorate and the police made more attempts to capture him. Finally, agent Elliot Ness led a team that caught Capone. The mobster was indicted for tax evasion and sentenced to eleven years of prison confinement.

Capone's life came to an end in 1947 after having lived many years tormented by syphilis. Nontheless, Capone's legend never died. He represents the spirit of the 1920's in the United States; a continuous search for opportunities and wealth. When you think about Capone, you think about earning $100 million per year in revenue and about having a huge black, bulletproof Cadillac that was later on used as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's  limousine.

Capone symbolizes richness, influence and power. On the other hand, he is an icon for crime and violence. But, if there is something true about the 1920's is that they gave birth to the best (or worst) gangster of all times. He will stay in our memories forever.

When someone doesn't hear what I have to say
When there is no Internet... that is, always
When there are 3 or more quizzes the next day
Lots of homework
When I run out of gas
The old and ugly school bus
The locker  padlocks
Very fat people
Arriving home after vacations
Thursdays
School food
Dizziness in airplanes or cars
Rainy mornings
Long waiting lines
Long waiting lines in the school food store
Borussia Dortmund
When FC Bayern looses a soccer match
A baby crying in a closed place
Bad smell in the bathroom
People who criticize a lot
Insecurity

Paraphrasing

-While the Sears Tower is arguably the greatest achievement in skyscraper engineering so far, it's unlikely that architects and engineers have abandoned the quest for the world's tallest building. The question is: Just how high can a building go? Structural engineer William LeMessurier has designed a skyscraper nearly one-half mile high, twice as tall as the Sears Tower. And architect Robert Sobel claims that existing technology could produce a 500-story building. From Ron Bachman, "Reaching for the Sky." Dial (May 1990): 15-

Paraphrased :  Nowadays, the Sears (Willis) Tower is the highest exponent of skyscraper’s engineering. Nontheless, engineers won’t abandon the quest to build even taller skyscrapers. Several experts believe in the possibility that today’s technology is enough to produce very tall buildings, taller than the ones done before (Bachman 15).

Reading Great Gatsby 141-147

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CbgsEHHy9Y

Jazz Song Analysis

The entire spirit of the novel Great Gatsby is captured in the jazz song When You´re Smiling by Louis Armstrong. All the merrymaking that Jay Gatsby does during the novel is destined to catch Daisy´s attention. He really loves her and he is passionate about her. The Green Light that Gatsby stares at, in one of the book´s early chapters, represents his love for Daisy and his obsession about her.

In the same way, Louis Armstrong transmits a strong feeling of love through this song. The song says that when she smiles the whole world smiles with her and that is exactly what Jay Gatsby feels for Daisy. When she smiles he even forgets that Nick is around.

Therefore, Louis Armstrong´s song definitely represents all the romantic spirit of the Great Gatsby.

When You´re Smiling

David Murcia Guzman

Just like Jay Gastsby, David Murcia was an enterpreneur. He was creative, he had an attractive personality and he was admired by others. Both Murcia and Gatsby somehow reached one of their objectives in life: They were rich and poweful after being lower-class and even abhorrent members of society.

Murcia was the founder and CEO of a group called DMG Holdings Co., that was a pyramid-scheme company. That means, if any person invested X money in the company, DMG promised to give the investor not X money but X*10 or X*100 money. At the end, authorities discovered that the profit was coming from money laundering and DMG was closed. Nowadays, David Murcia is in jail.

That illicit way of obtaining money was also present in Gatsby's case. Although he wasn't a money launderer, he was active in the bootlegging business in a time when alcohol consumption, selling and distribution was prohibited in the U.S.

It's just a matter of time until Jay Gatsby's destiny resembles Murcia's one, perhaps at the end of the novel.  Moreover, it could be that Murcia's destiny is heaven compared to such tragic events that could happen to Gatsby as the novel goes on.

The American Dream

The American Dream is a common desire between persons outside the United States, especially in third world countries, and immigrants who already live inside the U.S. territory. They all want to go to the U.S. and to take advantage of the economic opportunities available at that country. Every single one of the individuals who believe in the American Dream have one purpose in mind: To make easy money so that they can improve their lives and the ones of their relatives.

The term “American Dream” is used in a number of ways, but essentially the American Dream is an idea which suggests that all people can succeed through hard work, and that all people have the potential to live happy, successful lives. Many people have expanded upon or refined the definition of the American Dream, and this concept has also been subject to a fair amount of criticism. Many people believe that the structure of American society belies the idealistic goal of the American Dream, pointing to examples of inequality rooted in class, race, and ethnic origin which suggest that the American Dream is not attainable for all.

WiseGeeks.com

It is a dream of success, fame and wealth through thrift and hard work that has been widely spread through American and International culture.

Americansc.org.uk

The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.^[1] The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaims that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Wikipedia.org

A cop talking against prohibition in the 1920's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pSk32li3U0

The Roaring 20's

American Dream = 1920's.

If you want to find a place in which industrialization, progress and opportunities are available to everyone, look at North America during the 1920's.

After winning the World War I, the American patriotism was higher than ever before. Ford's Model T was just one of many examples of how progress was now available for common people. Technological improvements and a streghtened economy were the basis for a time in which people were simply happy; happy about being Americans and joyful about working for their country. 

During this decade, imperial projects such as the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building were starting to come true. Such monumental projects all represented the effort of thousands of Americans and, moreover, of thousands of immigrants, all of them working toward one goal: Building a true Land of Opportunities.

The best of the world's creative spirit was living in America. Even the mobsters, for example, developed such a solid and progress-based structure, that today we remember that decade as Capone's golden era.

In conclusion, even though the 1920's gave birth to devastating events such as the Great Depression and the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, the spirit of a new, modern and capitalist America was carved deep inside people's minds and that same spirit is what guides the U.S. now and what will be guiding the private and public iniciatives for years and years to come.