Forks over Knives is a 2011 American advocacy film and documentary that promotes a low-fat, whole-food, plant-based diet to avoid or prevent several chronic diseases. The documentary also focuses on the distribution of the US healthcare budget and other global issues of the nation. However, the film’s actual value lies in how it affects the attentive viewer, helping to become aware of the problems around and within themselves. For me, Forks over Knives has become essential to my understanding of proper and healthy eating.
After watching the movie, I learned how many nutritional problems are embedded in America’s value system. Many serious diseases, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, are problems that derive from Americans’ eating habits. A growing number of researchers argue that eliminating or significantly reducing refined, processed, and animal products can prevent and even reverse some of our worst diseases. This notion influenced my opinion on the diet because now I know which foods I should exclude from my average diet.
I also learned that cholesterol and the protein foods it is associated with are unhealthy. For example, protein was considered a vital nutrient, as it was claimed that animals would die without protein, so protein foods were treated as a life force. Protein was also almost synonymous with animal products such as meat, and most scientists believed that the world needed much more of this substance.
The biggest influence on my understanding of nutrition has been my exposure to the consequences of an unhealthy diet of animal products. This led me to change my diet because I learned that a fatty substance in the bloodstream called cholesterol accumulates in the coronary arteries over time. At the same time, cholesterol restricts blood flow to the heart, sometimes leading to a fatal outcome. This can eventually cause several problems, from severe chest pain called angina to heart attacks.
Today, many Americans need heart bypass surgery every year to prevent the deadly effects of cholesterol. This information made me think about the dangers of such food and start developing an individual healthy diet because the consequences of unhealthy nutrition are challenging to cure, not to mention the high cost of treatment. In doing so, Forks over Knives taught me a lot about food and helped me understand the importance of a rational approach to my diet and health.
“Vesperbild”: The Scale, Composition, Perspective-Pictorial, Space, And Pattern
People of lower classes in society majorly observed Christianity in the past, and therefore religious art did not receive substantial funding. People also adhered to the forbiddance of crafted images, apart from having a smaller number of Christians. They obtained most items from pagan artists and molded them to include Christian symbolic meanings. This paper contains a formal analysis of Vesperbild, an artwork crafted when Jesus’ mother held His dead body on her lap. The description covers the scale, composition, perspective/pictorial, space, form, line, color, light, tone, texture, and pattern of the sculpture.
Scale: Vesperbild is diminutive, measuring (38.1 x 39.1 x 14.0) cubic centimeters (Metropolitan Museum of Art). These dimensions are significant in the overall and relative sizes of the bodies in the artwork. The scale of the deceased body is diminutive relative to the monumental dimensions of His mother. It was derived from ancient German mystical belief that Mary grieved imaging the way she held her son as an infant, and therefore she had to hold Him again after His crucifixion. Artist used this scale to emphasize Mary’s suffering, holding a son in swaddling clothes, which was Jesus’ burial shroud.
Composition: the sculpture depicts Mary seated and swathed in long robes, holding the dead body of her son, Jesus Christ. The deceased’s head flops against Mary’s shoulder while she supports his legs on her lap. The artwork was created after Jesus’ crucifixion, and the two figures have disproportionate sizes. Although the son is muscular, His figure is small compared with Mary’s extremely large size. The artists depicted her as having the beautiful features of a young woman instead of presenting the mother of an old man.
Perspective/pictorial space: The sculpture is a three-dimensional representation of Mary, the mother of Jesus, holding his lifeless body. The perspective of Vesperbild was derived from ancient Germany when vespers referred to the sunset of Good Friday. It was during this period that Jesus’ body was taken from the cross for burial.
Form: Vesperbild is a Roman sculpture reflecting the lamentation of Christ. It was crafted from the Passion, and it consists of a dead body lying on the legs of the Virgin Mary. This form contains a beautiful mixture of art elements, depicting the value of Vesperbild in history.
Line: The lines utilized in the statue give the energy and value of the figure. The woman’s clothes are folded to create multidirectional lines, which are diagonal. The body of the deceased person contains many lines with a few distinctions to reveal His lifelessness. There is a diagonal line running from Mary’s chest to the upper abdomen of her son (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Vertical lines from Mary’s robes depict balance, alertness, and formality, while diagonal lines suggest movement and action, giving the statue a lifelike aura. From this sash, the viewer learns the absolute connection between the two figures.
Color: The artists used a mixture of white and blue Carrara marble, derived from the region it was mined in Italy. This color is among the favorite medium of artwork in ancient Rome (Metropolitan Museum of Art). It is associated with natural and calming features in art, and therefore the sculpture creates a melancholic feeling in the viewer.
Light: The material used to construct the Pieta Vesperbild has a luminous quality, resembling human skin. Constructing recesses and curves helped the artist achieve different values in the statue. For example, the folds of Mary’s robes contain dark shadows around her neck and under the deceased body (Metropolitan Museum of Art). The statue appears luminous on her face and on Jesus’ body.
Tone: Pieta Vesperbild depicts a somber tone, inspiring emotion, and faith through the stylish depiction of Mary holding Jesus Christ (Metropolitan Museum of Art). The poignancy of this artwork portrays the extent to which Christianity touches the soul concerning the love of a mother for her child. It also portrays the tragedy that mothers undergo for losing their children. The tone of Vesperbild is sorrowful, evoking pity feelings among viewers.
Texture: The Pieta Vesperbild is exclusively made from a very smooth Carrara marble. It depicts Jesus’ body having wavy hair falling on the folds of Mary’s veil and dress (Metropolitan Museum of Art). This appearance gives the sculpture a varied texture that inspires sorrowful emotions in the viewer.
Pattern: The sculpture has a pyramidal shape, where its top contains Mary’s small head. The statue expands to the woman’s waist and legs covered in large robes. The face is relatively small and pretty, with an ovular shape at the pinnacle of the pyramid. Jesus’ body resembles an inverted obtuse triangle, portraying unity and interest (Metropolitan Museum of Art). The pattern is intriguing, suggesting tranquility, stability, and calmness, which are ideal features for the purpose of the sculpture. This pattern originates from Renaissance art, and the figures are unproportioned because it is difficult for a mother to hold a fully-grown man.
Conclusively, the Pieta Vesperbild was crafted to emphasize prayer and reflection. The artist used Carrara marble, with a smooth texture and a luminous quality. The tone is somber, evoking sorrowful feelings among viewers. Vesperbild is pyramidal in shape, having diagonal, vertical, and horizontal sashes. Its scale is unproportioned with a three-dimensional representation of Jesus and Mary holding his lifeless body.
Work Cited
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Pietà (Vesperbild), ca, 1400, Web.
Administrative Policy On Homelessness
Introduction
Policy-based interventions are the most effective measures to address systematic issues. A wide range of administrative policies directly or indirectly tied to homelessness affect the homeless population to the extent that there can be artificial barriers to receiving benefits in the United States. Therefore, understanding and analyzing these administrative policies, which influence the well-being and survival of homeless individuals, is critical. In addition, it is critical to assess the underlying principles of these policies’ impact on the target population. The most effective solutions to the problem include the affordability of private-market houses, permanent assistive housing, facilitation of low-cost home development, and voucher-based housing.
Main body
The issue of homelessness needs to be addressed with the use of national and state policies. The current administrative measures are composed of a combination of both harmful and beneficial policies, which results in an unsubstantial change. When it comes to the policies, there are ones that benefit the homeless population and reduce homelessness rates. One such policy is permanent housing assistance or permanent supportive housing, which operates on the principle of‘ housing first.’ Research suggests that “permanent supportive housing is negatively associated with homeless counts” (Corinth, 2017, p. 69). In other words, providing homeless individuals with a permanent house can be an effective solution for both prevention of homelessness as well as the repeated occurrence of homelessness. It is stated that “strong empirical evidence confirms that homelessness is essentially a housing problem,” which is substantiated by the fact that “rates of homelessness are greater in cities, towns, and counties with low vacancy rates and high rents and lower in cities, towns, and counties with relatively high levels of housing assistance targeted to people living in poverty” (NYU Furman Center, 2021, para. 3). In other words, the issue is not rooted in certain factors of the homeless population but rather the housing imbalances.
Moreover, four categories of policies can help to resolve the problem of homeless, but they require combined implementation. Firstly, it is critical to “create and preserve dedicated affordable housing units” through policies, such as low-income housing tax credits and voucher-based measures (NYU Furman Center, 2021, para. 10). In other words, these steps prevent repeated homelessness among people with low income. In addition, it is important to “promote affordability by reducing barriers to new supply” by facilitating the construction of low-cost houses as well as decreasing the barriers to the development of such buildings (NYU Furman Center, 2021, para. 11). Since the current administrative policies do not ensure that homeless individuals and households can reenter the housing market, the policies, such as housing choice vouchers, help people to access private-market homes (Shinn & Cohen, 2019). It will ensure that the permanent housing units will not hold homeless people for extended periods of time. Lastly, policies, such as “Just Cause,” are needed to protect the influx of newly homeless individuals, where these measures protect renters against unjustified evictions.
In the case of policies, which negatively impact the given population, it is important to analyze their underlying mechanisms. The policies which criminalize homeless people are the most harmful when it comes to being counterproductive to the proper resolution of the problem. It is stated that “the criminalization of homelessness refers to measures that prohibit life-sustaining activities such as sleeping/camping, eating, sitting, and/or asking for money/resources in public spaces. These ordinances include criminal penalties for violations of these acts” (NCH, 2020, para. 1). Such policies not only discriminate against the given vulnerable group but also violate a number of their constitutional rights. For example, restricting beggars’ communication violates their 1st Amendment protection of free speech, whereas vague and improperly defined statutes diminish homeless people’s “14th Amendment protecting citizenship, due process, and equal protection” (NCH, 2020, para. 6). In addition, any form of criminal record or other forms of punitive measures against the homeless population essentially worsens their experience and ability to recover through the acquisition of employment.
There is a growing marginalization of homeless individuals as a way to protect the private lives of the unaffected majority. At the state level, one can see a wide range of social policy directions at the local level in this matter. Such responses range from complete disregard and police harassment to the provision of a whole range of services that are not always effective in facilitating adaptation. The state, in its social policy, still does not give an answer to the question of how society should treat such people. Social exclusion is also a dynamic process, as a property inherent in a certain type of society, just as marginality is a dynamic property of an individual or a social community. Social exclusion is a process of marginalization associated with limited access to social institutions of integration. Therefore, social exclusion is the process of excluding an individual from society, while marginalization is the process of an individual leaving society.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the issue of homelessness is a complex problem that requires systematic solutions. The administrative policies which benefit homeless people include permanent assistive housing, voucher-based housing, facilitation of low-cost home development, and affordability of private-market houses. However, any form of criminalization or discrimination against the homeless population can further burden these vulnerable groups, which counterproductively hinders their escape from the homeless state.
References
Corinth, K. (2017). The impact of permanent supportive housing on homeless populations. Journal of Housing Economics, 35, 69–84. Web.
NCH. (2020). Civil rights. National Coalition of the Homeless. Web.
NYU Furman Center. (2021). Reducing homelessness and meeting the emergency needs of individuals and families experiencing homelessness. Local Housing Solutions. Web.
Shinn, M., & Cohen, R. (2019). Homelessness prevention: A review of the literature [PDF document]. Web.