Famous All Over Town by Danny Santiago Essay -- Famous All

Every individual has times in their life where they feel isolated and alone. When this occurrs a person will search for ways to connect or feel important.. The person will do anything they can to be noticed and appreciated. In the novel, Famous All Over Town, by Danny Santiago the main character, Chato, has many reasons to feel lonely. In almost every aspect of his life he is being let down in one way or another. He has to try to deal with a family on the brink of falling apart, he has to go to a school which doesn't teach anything "fun," and he has friends that are a bad influence on him. The novel reveals how he has to endure hardships, most of us do not have, to get through a day. By the end of the novel the reader begins to understand why Chato starts to write on buildings all over town. For most individuals the home is a safe dependable environment when the world seems to be threatening. Ideally, family members support one another. This is not the case with Chato. His home is a place where he feels the most isolated. One reason he might feel this way is because of all the secrets that are being kept in his home. What bothers Chato the most is the secret his sister, Lena, is keeping from everyone but their mother. He wants to know from his sister the identity of the man who is hiding his suitcase in their shed. She lies to Chato and tells him that the man is just a friend, but Chato finds out the truth. When he does, Lena isn't very happy with him and she says, "Your're a snot nosed metiche. Get out of my life." She continues, "And don't expect me to kiss your ass!'É..'Go ahead and tell my father you little snitch baby.'"(l0l) Maybe if the family was more supportive of one another they wouldn't find it necessary to keep se... ...him down. She might have written more paragraphs on each of her main points. There are many more examples in the novel. She had more thoroughly EXPLAINED how each of the direct quotations and situations she used showed that Chato was being let down and how he felt about it. The reader could have gained MORE insight into Chato's life. I wanted to hear more about the relationship between Chato and his family. I wanted to know more about WHY his sister was keeping secrets, and why Chato was so let down by her calling him a little "snitch." It all sounded pretty much like ordinary bickering between a brother and a sister to me. I wanted her to better explain WHY Chato was being let down.Overall, I just wanted to know MORE. She needed to develop each of these examples more fully. She needed to get more "into" the feelings of Chato and explain them to her reader. Â  

Hall of Fame (Essay/Response)

Earlier in the year I presented a speech that was about believing in yourself and pursuing your dreams. Shortly after I did that, a song called ‘The Hall Of Fame’ by a band called The Script, featuring a rapper from the pop group The Black Eyed Peas, Will. I. Am, was released on the 19th of August 2012, and has been in the Top 100 Billboard charts since then. The lyrics in this song really motivates me in so many ways, and just inspires me to reach higher, and strive harder everyday. The three phrases that were used repeatedly in these song lyrics were ‘You can’, ‘You Could’, and ‘Do it’.These constant sayings in the song are the words that motivate me the most. ‘You can’, because you can do anything. â€Å"You can be the greatest, You can be the best, You can be the king kong banging on your chest. †, are the first 3 lyrics that are sung, telling you that if you want to be somewhere great in your life, you can a chieve it. That ‘can’ is letting you know that it is possible, anything is possible, and that it is achievable. ‘You could’, because with your belief, you could achieve the greatest record, with your belief. You could go the distance, You could run the mile, You could walk straight through hell with a smile. † These are another 3 lyrics that are sung in the second verse of the song. This ‘could’ Is telling you the possibilities that are open for you to take a chance in, letting you know that the world records that you think can never be broken, could be broken, with your effort & faith. ‘Do it’, because you only live once, and may never get the chance again. â€Å"Do it for your people, Do it for your pride†¦ Do it for your country, Do it for your name. The ‘Do it’ is telling you to make your people proud, to prove your haters wrong, and to do it for yourself, your diginity. â€Å"Dedicate yourself and you can find yourself standing in the hall of fame. † In my personal opinion, it’s one thing if you have a dream and want to pursue it, but you have to dedicate yourself. Working hard at not what you want, but what you need. This lyric lets me know that if I believe in something, put my best efforts into it, and keep a smile on my face, with great possibility I can be standing in the hall of fame.When they say ‘Standing In the Hall Of Fame’, I don’t necessarily think it means being a celebrity or being famous, but being the best you can be, in a ‘hall’ as they like to call it, which to my imagination, is a hallway filled with records broken, and names to remember. The reason why I like this song so much is that I can easily relate it to my normal life. And I’m sure not only mine, but to plenty others too. It makes me feel better about myself in such a way that I know that anything is possible.Everyone has a goal, or a dream whether i t’s losing a few pounds for summer or breaking and Olympic record, everyone has one. Having a goal is the greatest way to get somewhere you want, because a goal paints a picture in your mind of what you want and need, and I can honestly say that when I picture myself being onstage, and daydream about working with my favourite producers, it gives me an motivational boost that tells me, ‘it’s possible. ’ But imagining things isn’t the only way I can keep motivated, listening to music keeps me motivated.And with this particular song being released, it is a mash of the two, which is why it’s so inspirational to me, and it’s also why I am writing a response to it at this moment. â€Å"Be students Be teachers Be politicians Be preachers Be believers Be leaders Be astronauts Be champions Be true seekers† This repetition is what caught my ears the most in this song. That persuasive ‘Be’ makes you just want to get up and do something. The vocals they use in the song while singing these enhance even more, it’s as if they are chanting for you to do it, it makes you feel like you’re in a stadium having people cheer you on to pursue your dream.It’s giving you that motivation and support which you might not be able to find at home or at school. One last thing I would like to elaborate on, is when the lyric reads, ‘Don’t wait for luck. ’ It’s pretty much a way of saying, don’t be lazy. Which is an excellent example of why teenagers today aren’t achieving much. It’s because they get lazy. I’ve met so many people around my age who have huge dreams and goals, but they never get anywhere because they are just waiting for something to happen. In order to get what you want, you need to fight.

US Federal Government Gasoline Tax Since 1933

The gas tax was first imposed by the federal government in 1932 at a mere 1 cent per gallon. It has increased 10 times since President Herbert Hoover authorized the creation of such a tax to balance the budget. Drivers now pay 18.4 cents a gallon in the federal gas tax. First authorized by Congress in 1932 to help balance the federal budget, the federal gas tax is now used to pay for building and maintaining interstate highways and bridges. In addition to the federal tax, each state adds its own tax to every gallon of gas sold in the state. Revenue from the federal gas tax is pumped into the Highway Trust Fund (HTF). The HTF funds federal and state infrastructure projects for roads, bridges and public transportation systems. Each state collects, manages, and decides how to spend its state gas tax revenue. Here are the gas tax rates per gallon through the years, according to U.S. Department of Transportation and Congressional Research Service reports: 1 cent - June 1932 through May 1933 Hoover authorized the first ever gas tax as a way to close an anticipated $2.1 billion federal deficit in the fiscal year 1932, a time of severe depression when the government saw revenue in steep decline. According to the Congressional Research Service report The Federal Excise Tax on Gasoline and the Highway Trust Fund: A Short History by Louis Alan Talley, the government raised $124.9 million from the gas tax in the fiscal year 1933, which represented 7.7 percent of the total Internal Revenue collection of $1.620 billion from all sources. 1.5 cents - June 1933 through December 1933 The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, signed by Hoover, extended the original gas tax and increased it to 1.5 cents. 1 cent - January 1934 through June 1940 The Revenue Act of 1934 rescinded the half-cent gas tax increase. 1.5 cents - July 1940 through October 1951 Congress raised the gas tax by half a cent in 1940, just before the United States entered World War II, to help boost national defense. It also made the gas tax permanent in 1941. 2 cents - November 1951 through June 1956 The Revenue Act of 1951 increased the gas tax to generate additional revenue after the Korean War began. 3 cents - July 1956 through September 1959 The Highway Revenue Act of 1956 established the federal Highway Trust Fund to pay for the construction of an Interstate System, Talley wrote, as well as financing primary, secondary and urban routes. The gas tax was hiked to help generate revenue for the projects. 4 cents - October 1959 through March 1983 The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1959 boosted the gas tax by 1 cent. 9 cents - April 1983 through December 1986 In the largest single gas tax increase, President Ronald Reagan authorized a 5 cent hike in the rate spelled out in the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982, which helped to fund both highway construction and mass transit systems across the country. 9.1 cents - January 1987 through August 1990 The Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 tacked on a tenth of a cent to help pay for repairing leaking underground storage tanks. 9 cents - September 1990 through November 1990 The Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund had reached its revenue goal for the year and the gas tax was reduced by a tenth of a cent. 14.1 cents - December 1990 through September 1993 President George H. W. Bushs signature on the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, which was designed to help close the federal budget deficit, increased the gas tax by 5 cents. Half of the new gas tax revenue went to the Highway Trust Fund and the other went to deficit reduction, according to the Transportation Department. 18.4 cents - October 1993 through December 1995 The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, signed by President Bill Clinton, increased the gas tax by 4.3 cents to again reduce the federal deficit. None of the additional revenue was put into to the Highway Trust Fund, according to the Transportation Department. 18.3 cents - January 1996 through September 1997 The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, also signed by Clinton, redirected revenue from the 1993 gas tax increase of 4.3 cents to the Highway Trust Fund. The gas tax dropped a tenth of a cent because the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund expired. 18.4 cents - October 1997 through today A tenth of a cent was tacked back onto the gas tax because the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund was reinstated. Information on federal and state gasoline taxes, including the current federal and state gas tax rates, can be found on the website of the U.S. Energy Information Administration.