Brown Sugar essays

Brown Sugar essays Brown Sugar is modern day love story between 2 friends, Dre (Taye Diggs) and Sidney (Sanaa Lathan) who can attribute their friendship and the launch of their careers to a single childhood momentthe day they discovered hip-hop on a New York street corner. Now some 15 years later, she is a revered music critic and he is a successful, though unfulfilled music executive. As they lay down the tracks toward their futures, hip-hop isn't the only thing that keeps them coming back to that moment on the corner that they both can't seem to forget, and a bond between them that is not as platonic as they would like to believe. What is the attraction that each couple has for each other? Dre and Sidney have an undeniable yet strange attraction for each other. Because of their strong affinity spawning from their friendship, their true romantic attraction does not become an issue until the pot boils over. The first attraction is infatuation displayed at a young age. The phrase birds of a feather flock together# holds true for Dre and Sidney. The couple is homophily intertwined from the city streets of New York City burros. The two have an abundance of life experiences, and rememberable points during the movie in which make they reflect back and cherish their friendship and love for one another. The two soon begin developing a tremendous love and passion for hip hip music, and there love for hip hop is the glue that will bond them for life. Another element of their attraction is how hip hop has grew along with them throughout the years, and now Sidney is an editor at XXL Magazine, a popular hip hop magazine, and Dre is a successful executive with Millennium Records, developing new hip hop artist. Their passion and love for hip hop has grew into career goals, which have also strengthened the glue between them. And last but not least, is their obvious physical attraction for each other. Sidney is a beautiful cocoa brown s...

All About Russias Exclave of Kaliningrad

All About Russia's Exclave of Kaliningrad Russias smallest oblast (region) of Kaliningrad is an exclave located 200 miles away from the border of Russia proper. Kaliningrad was a spoil of World War II, allocated from Germany to the Soviet Union at the Potsdam Conference that divided Europe between the allied powers in 1945. The oblast is a wedge-shaped piece of land along the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania, approximately one-half the size of Belgium, 5,830 mi2 (15,100 km2). The oblasts primary and port city is also known as Kaliningrad. Founding Known as Konigsberg prior to Soviet occupation, the city was founded in 1255 near the mouth of the Pregolya River. The philosopher Immanuel Kant was born in Konigsberg in 1724. The capital of German East Prussia, Konigsberg was the home to a grand Prussian Royal Castle, destroyed along with much of the city in World War II. Konigsberg was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946 after Mikhail Kalinin, formal leader of the Soviet Union from 1919 until 1946. At the time, Germans living in the oblast were forced out, to be replaced with Soviet citizens. While there were early proposals to change the name of Kaliningrad back to Konigsberg, none were successful. Key History The ice-free port of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea was home to the Soviet Baltic fleet; during the Cold War 200,000 to 500,000 soldiers were stationed in the region. Today only 25,000 soldiers occupy Kaliningrad, an indicator of the reduction of the perceived threat from NATO countries. The USSR attempted to build a 22-story House of Soviets, the ugliest building on Russian soil, in Kaliningrad but the structure had been built on the property of the castle. Unfortunately, the castle contained many underground tunnels and the building began to slowly collapse though it still stands, unoccupied. After the fall of the USSR, neighboring Lithuania and former Soviet republics gained their independence, cutting Kaliningrad off from Russia. Kaliningrad was supposed to develop in the post-Soviet era into a Hong Kong of the Baltic but corruption keeps most investment away. South Korean-based Kia Motors has a factory in Kaliningrad. Railroads connect Kaliningrad to Russia through Lithuania and Belarus but importing food from Russia is not cost-effective. However, Kaliningrad is surrounded by European Union member-states, so trade on the wider market is indeed possible. Approximately 400,000 people live in metropolitan Kaliningrad and a total of nearly one million are in the oblast, which is approximately one-fifth forested.