Walking Forward Into The Light Essays - Christianity, Africa

Walking Forward Into The Light ?My father, of course, was bringing the Word of God- which fortunately weighs nothing at all.? (Kingsolver 19) Missionaries from all faiths have traveled all over the world in attempts to show other peoples their ways. Christian missionaries in particular have struggled in their efforts to convert indigenous people. Simply bringing the Word of God, as Nathan Price does in The Poisonwood Bible, was and is not possible. With a conversion of faith comes an adoption of customs, morals, lifestyles, and even political views. Even though young Leah Price says that the Word of God weighed nothing, it was actually the heaviest burden the Price family carried with them on their journey. Every missionary who has brought the Word of God to the Congo region has been faced with many more challenges than they could have ever imagined. The Poisonwood Bible provides a glimpse into each of the complex situations that are created due to missionary work in the Congo. It is the turning point for religious work in the nation and depicts the ongoing struggle between the Congo and the rest of the world. However, to fully understand the impact of missionary work in the Congo, the beginning as well as the future of this movement most also be examined. The Congolese are a people who are rich in culture, very bright, and extremely diverse. For a long time, they were also regarded as being among the richest in natural resources until other countries exploited them. Africans in general had no need for prejudice, even when engaged in trade with other tribes or countries. Their practice of enslavement was merely a way to win a war or conflict. They treated slaves humanely. However, there was a great deal of misunderstanding from the very beginning between natives and the Europeans that arrived on the continent. Even missionaries struggled to understand their completely different way of life. The most challenging cultural idea was religion. Africa, including the people of the Congo, is a monotheistic people. Most explorers and missionaries failed to understand their belief in one creator. Generally, Europeans thought that the Congolese were an ignorant and backwards people and certainly would not have any ideas about just ?one God.? (Nkuzi) This superiority complex put a great deal of distance between the two peoples. The lack of true communication and understanding between the natives and the missionaries was the cause of the most devastation. Without a firm understanding of the culture, the missionaries could make little headway in conversions or even simply helping the communities. Giving aide to the villages of the Congo was one of the more successful efforts on behalf of the missionaries. Hospitals, clinics, improvements in transportation, and agriculture were all helpful additions to the Congolese way of life. However, these new establishments only made advances in places where the missionaries took an unassuming role. As seen in the novel The Poisonwood Bible, the hospital in Leopoldville lacked the prejudice and fervor of men like Nathan Price. It is obvious that the hospital helped more people than Nathan ever does. Also seen in the novel is the French Catholic missions led by religious women. In this scenario, the women wonder if what they are doing is enough; however, they again make more advances to help the people because they did not try to preach to anyone. Their ministry was one of healing, and Leah Price recognizes this when she hides for protection in their mission. Missionaries have been exploring the Congo region for over 100 years. European missions led almost all of the earliest expeditions into this new, uncharted territory. These men came not only with a sense of conversion, but domination. This mindset still causes problems today between the two groups. The missionaries came with the words of the Gospel of Mark: ?go therefore, and make disciples of every nation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, whoever does not believe will be condemned? (Mark16:15-16). To save every person from sin seemed like the only Christian thing to do; however, this immense task could not ever take a firm hold in a land where tradition and faith had been practiced quite differently for thousands of years. As

Nietzsches Idea of Eternal Return

Nietzsche's Idea of Eternal Return The idea of eternal return, or eternal recurrence, has existed in various forms since antiquity. Put simply, its the theory that existence recurs in an infinite cycle as energy and matter transform over time. In ancient Greece, the Stoics believed that the universe went through repeating stages of transformation similar to those found in the wheel of time of Hinduism and Buddhism. Such ideas of cyclical time later fell out of fashion, especially in the West, with the rise of Christianity. One notable exception is found in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th-century German thinker who was known for his unconventional approach to philosophy. One of Nietzsches most famous ideas is that of eternal recurrence, which appears in the penultimate section of his book The Gay Science. Eternal Recurrence The Gay Science is one of Nietzsches most personal works, collecting not only his philosophical reflections but also a number of poems, aphorisms, and songs. The idea of eternal recurrence- which Nietzsche presents as a sort of thought experiment- appears in Aphorism 341, The Greatest Weight: What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence- even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust! Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine. If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more? would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life  Nietzsche reported that this thought came to him suddenly one day in August 1881 while he was taking a walk along a lake in Switzerland. After introducing the idea at the end of The Gay Science, he made it one of the fundamental concepts of his next work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Zarathustra, the prophet-like figure who proclaims Nietzsche’s teachings in this volume, is at first reluctant to articulate the idea, even to himself. Eventually, though, he proclaims that eternal recurrence is a joyful truth, one that should be embraced by anyone who lives life to the fullest. Oddly enough, eternal recurrence doesnt figure too prominently in any of the works Nietzsche published after Thus Spoke Zarathustra. However, there is a section dedicated to the idea in The Will to Power, a collection of notes published by Nietzsche’s sister Elizabeth in 1901. In the passage, Nietzsche seems to seriously entertain the possibility that the doctrine is literally true. It is significant, however, that the philosopher never insists on the ideas literal truth in any of his other published writings. Rather, he presents eternal recurrence as a sort of thought experiment, a test of ones attitude toward life. Nietzsche’s Philosophy Nietzsches philosophy is concerned with questions about freedom, action, and will. In presenting the idea of eternal recurrence, he asks us not to take the idea as truth but to ask ourselves what we would do if the idea were true. He assumes that our first reaction would be utter despair: the human condition is tragic; life contains much suffering; the thought that one must relive it all an infinite number of times seems terrible. But then he imagines a different reaction. Suppose we could welcome the news, embrace it as something that we desire? That, says Nietzsche, would be the ultimate expression of a life-affirming attitude: to want this life, with all its pain and boredom and frustration, again and again. This thought connects with the dominant theme of Book IV of The Gay Science, which is the importance of being a â€Å"yea-sayer,† a life-affirmer, and of embracing amor fati (love of one’s fate). This is also how the idea is presented in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Zarathustra’s being able to embrace eternal recurrence is the ultimate expression of his love for life and his desire to remain â€Å"faithful to the earth.† Perhaps this would be the response of the ÃÅ"bermnesch or Overman who Zarathustra anticipates as a higher kind of human being. The contrast here is with religions like Christianity, which see this world as inferior, this life as a mere preparation for a better life in paradise. Eternal recurrence thus offers a notion of immortality counter to the one proposed by Christianity.

Animal Cruelty effects and relating laws

Animal Cruelty effects and relating laws Different types of animal cruelty have ee around for many years. Laws relating to animal cruelty vary from state to state. As of 2009, about forty-six states  have some felony provisions in their anti-cruelty and/or animal fighting laws (Wisch, 2005). As time passes and new things are being invented, people seem to loose interest in their pets. Even though people use animals for their testing/experiments, there are other ways to get a solution to something. Scientist and many others, find it easier and safer to test on animals than to test on other possible sources. They test products such as makeup, and cologne. They also use animal fur for designer clothing & other types of fashion. Innocent animals are being used for useless products that we can live without. Many animals die due to different types of crucial testing. They suffer by going through several procedures. The goal is not to patch up ailing people but to use the human tissues in place of mice, dogs or other lab animal s for testing new drugs, cosmetics and other products (New York Times, nd). With the donation of human cells, animal testing will be reduced. This way is safer & can be both suited for animals and humans. â€Å"If the animal- rights movement had a bible, it is Singer’s 1975 book, Animal Liberation†Ã‚  (New York Times, Jan. 15, pg 30).  Singer calls many of the attitudes human beings have toward other animal’s speciesism, a concept which can be found throughout history (Gargaro, 1991). Humans are just like animals as far as feeling pain. Eight billion animals are killed each year in this country for food. More than a thousand animals are killed and shipped to groceries stores to be bought. Slaughtering of cows, pigs, and other animals, happen everyday because consumers keep purchasing meat. Animals on today’s factory farms are kept in crowded, filthy enclosures and denied everything natural and enjoyable to them. Most of them have no legal protection fro m cruelty that would be illegal if it were inflicted on  dogs  or  cats. There are some fruits or vegetables that can give the same protein as meat. The  Humane Slaughter Act  requires that animals be rendered unconscious with one swift application of a stunning device before slaughter.  Animals in slaughterhouses can smell the stench, hear the sounds and often see the slaughter of those before them. As the animals struggle from fright, the human workers who are pressured to keep the lines moving quickly often react with impatience towards the animals.   Numerous cases of deliberate cruelty have been reported including workers who took sadistic pleasure from shooting the eyes out of cattle, striking them in the head, and electrically shocking them in sensitive areas of their bodies. As for the chemistry of the central nervous and endocrine systems, there is no difference between humans and other animals. All free-range, factory-farmed, egg-laying, dairy-producing, or w ool-bearing animals that don’t first die from disease are trucked to the slaughterhouse.   To minimize costs, animals are crowded and must live in each other’s excrement.   They are exposed to extreme weather conditions in the open trucks.   Shipping fever, which can be fatal, is common in cattle transported long distances to the feedlots, the stockyards and then the slaughterhouse (Compassionate Action Institute, nd).

The Hunt for Red October Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Hunt for Red October - Movie Review Example Many captains have been coached by Ramius, and now, Ramius has gained the charge of Red October – the advanced submarine. Red October is special because it does not make any noise and yet, can be driven faster as compared to all ships under water. The sub vanishes after it has been once detected by the American intelligence upon its departure from the Soviet shipyard. This instigates a serious hide-and-seek game in the region of North Atlantic with the mobilization of the whole Soviet navy. The Soviets wanted Americans to think of Ramius as a person with lost senses that aims at hiding the Red October and target either Washington or New York for the nuclear missile attacks. Therefore, they seek help from the US Navy in finding and demolishing the Red October, though Ryan does not accede to their proposal because he thinks of it as a blunder. Accordingly, Ryan conveys the approach of Ramius to the superior. In this film, the audience has to make predictions for the underlying c auses of actions of Ramius quite often. The original novel written by Clancy from which the plot of this movie has been derived took a lot of time to develop the complexity of the plot whereas this has been achieved by the movie in much lesser time, even though, the clarity of expression has not been compromised upon. This is one of the strengths of this movie. In order to develop the plot of their stories in the Cold War era, a vast majority of the military thrillers made use of crude motivations and stereotyping. The Hunt for Red October contains a strong element of fun in that it tells that men can very easily go wrong, and that assumptions can be both false and seductive. Ryan spends too little time with Ramius to gain a rational understanding of his personality. Ryan’s knowledge about the personality of Ramius is based totally upon his meeting with Ramius on the dining table. All of the rest is exaggeration and skilled hunches. The previous movies by McTiernan that inclu de Die Hard and Predator projected both accurate timing and a good sense of style, though in The Hunt for Red October, McTiernan has projected the detached intelligence just like the one that Clancy had inculcated in the novel. There is much more than mere thrill in the movie. It essentially portrays a military exercise in which each and every action of the players is calculated and is not without a purpose. This movie contains a lot of speaking roles apart from the cast members that were hired only for one or two scenes. Typecasting plays a very important role in any movie with such a large cast. In this movie, McTieman has totally typecast and has not stereotyped. Sean Connery goes perfect with the role of Ramius, and his Scots accent makes him deviate a lot from a typical movie Soviet. Baldwin looks like a leader, but his character seems dialed down in the persona of a deck-bound bureaucrat who finds it hard to realize that he has entered the field exercise. Scott Glenn is more t alented than the conventional movie skippers. A lot of credibility of the movie can be attributed to its production design. Submarines in The Hunt for Red October are much glossier on the inside than what they are in the real life submarines, though the shots of underwater exterior are not at all impressive. The filmmakers have made use of various submarine models in order to portray the behemoths moving in the sea. Owing to the fact that a submarine’s exterior is not generally photogenic, these shots rather

How does communicaton influence ones sense of identity Essay

How does communicaton influence ones sense of identity - Essay Example Therefore communication and ones sense of identity are two interrelated concepts. People can’t live without communication with each other, it is impossible not to talk to other people, not to share information. A sense of identity is a certain filter that helps to structure and organize information and communicative strategies relevant to an individual: â€Å"The concepts and information relevant to the self also have an instrumental influence on decisions to pursue particular goals† (Sense of Identity). In its turn, communication is a certain measurement of individual’s sense of identity. Individuals’ sense of identity varies; therefore it is natural that every performer of a certain social role communicates in a different manner. For example, self-assured individuals are more direct and energetic communicants. Uncertain individuals are more tolerant or even passive communicants in comparison with the active communicants mentioned above. This observation can be explained in the following way: the society imposes its social roles on individuals; social stereotypes make every individual to perceive another with regard to the social role he plays. Consequently, a process of communication reflects the way individuals perceive themselves (i.e. their sense of identity), the way individuals perceive each other: in the process of communication â€Å"we learn how others see us, and we internalize many views of the world and of who we are and should be† (Communication and personal identity). Nevertheless, there are basic principles of successful communication. These are: attentive and valuable attention paid to an interlocutor; respect, courtesy and patience. Basically, if to comply with these basic principles, then sense of identity of every interlocutor won’t decrease. Vice versa, in the process of a favorable communication the assessment of self-identity of any communicator is increased (Communication and personal identity). The easiest way to trace the connection between self-identity and communication is to consider it in practice. The clearest example is daily communication with our family members. The opinion of the closest relatives, of our beloved people influence the way we consider ourselves. This communication takes place from the first days of our life and forms our first identity, so it is very important and essential. In the paradigm of the following concepts we’ll consider this interrelation: direct definition, identity scripts and attachment styles. Direct definition is the way our family members ‘label’ us (little boy, a big girl etc). Parents’ gender roles are usually transferred to their children. Thus, what children value in future depends on values imposed on them by their parents in their childhood. Identity scripts are â€Å"rules for how we are supposed to live and who we are supposed to be† (Communication and personal identity). Family values and heritage are reflected in identity scripts. They are transferred to children in the process of communication and thus a sense of identity is pre-shaped in identity scripts. The last concept is attachment styles. This concept implies the way parents impose on us how to treat and relate to others. Generally, a child develops a sense of a positive sense of self-worth (Communication and personal identity). Therefore communication and sense of identity are two related concepts. Communication represents a certain measurement of

Elevating Class and Language Between Two Plays Essay Example for Free

Elevating Class and Language Between Two Plays Essay A person’s language is often connected to his or her social status. A person from a higher status will have a different dialect of the same language than someone from lower status. People brought up in poor surroundings or poverty are keen to swearing and have little concern to speaking properly as their language was intended. People from high society are the opposite. They are very much concerned with using their verbal skills and their rhetoric, and they are able use it as a form of power over others. These ideas of language between classes can be seen in the plays â€Å"The Tempest,† by William Shakespeare, and â€Å"Pygmalion† by Bernard Shaw. Though Shaw’s play is much more focused on the language based transformation of â€Å"Eliza Doolittle,† and the interaction between her and Professor Higgins, Shakespeare’s creates a similar relationship between the lowly Caliban, and his master Prospero. Both plays show that a superficial change in education, or language, cannot realistically change a person or their social class, rather the real changes to these characters are made internally. Both Eliza and Caliban come from poor backgrounds. Eliza is a very poor flower girl with terrible English. She swears often, by saying â€Å"bloody† constantly between sentences. As Shaw describes her initially as â€Å"the flower girl† she is unsympathetically described as ugly and disgusting, â€Å"Her hair needs washing rather badly: its mousy color can hardly be natural. She wears a shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to her waist† (Shaw, 13). Even her accent makes her feel like a second class citizen. Beneath all of this, Eliza is still a proud girl, â€Å"I’m a good girl, I am† (2). Because â€Å"The Tempest† contains magic, Caliban is born the son of the deceased witch Cycorax. Like Eliza, Caliban also maintains his pride as he believes he is the rightful owner of the island which Prospero later took control over. Also like Eliza, much of his speech is riddled with slurs and cursing. His demonic blood allows Prospero to treat him like a lower class, subhuman monster, similar to how Professor Higgins treats Eliza like a lower class citizen due to her looks, her demeanor, and consequently her social status as a flower girl. In response, Caliban responds with hostility whenever Prospero calls for him, â€Å"As wicked dew as eer my mother brushd/ With ravens feather from unwholesome fen/ Drop on you both! a south-west blow on ye/ And blister you all oer!† (20), and Prospero responds in kind by sending spirits to harass him and pinch him. The extent of the transformation that learning language had over both characters is limited to being just a tool for them to use while unfortunately (to their masters) keeping the same personality. What changes to Eliza is most definitely a surface level change and not a deep identity level change, at least through the length of the experiment. Though Higgins manages to transform Eliza’s appearance from that of a low-status flower girl to that of a refined young lady, she remains a cockney flower girl underneath her facade of a proper accent speaking proper English. Her real personality remains persistently unchanged until the end of the play. This is the same with Caliban who, through learning language from Prospero, remains bitter, hateful, and envious throughout â€Å"The Tempest.† Caliban remains â€Å"ungrateful† for being taught language by Prospero, â€Å"You taught me language, and my profit on’t/ Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you /For learning me your language!† In this popular quote, Caliban uses the language taught to him against Prospero to display his disgust towards Prospero’s efforts to change him. It also draws a sharp similarity between the treatment between higher and lower classes in both plays. Eliza’s relationship with Higgins’ language is similar to Caliban’s relationship with Prospero in that both Eliza and Caliban understand language as a reminder of their low social status compared to their â€Å"masters.† Both characters also remain â€Å"ungrateful† in the narratives of their â€Å"masters,† when they are mostly more concerned to keep their own personal dignity. The difference in narratives between the characters learning language, and those teaching it in both plays is very similar. Both Higgins and Prospero, in their understanding of what they are doing by teaching Eliza and Caliban language, are teaching them a way to elevate their status. Because both â€Å"masters† are concerned with social status, they believe their students should strongly value their gifts of language education. Both Higgins and Prospero also consider their subjects highly ungrateful. When Higgins mother objects to his experiment, Higgens retorts, â€Å"You have no idea how frightfully interesting it is to take a human being and to change her into a quite different human being by creating a new speech for her. It’s filling up the deepest gulf that separates class from class and soul from soul.’ (Shaw, 78),† while believing that changing Eliza’s speech will not only change her class, but her soul. At the climax of the play between Higgins and Eliza, after Eliza asks to return the belongings Higgins gave and lent to her, Higgins becomes upset, â€Å"If these belonged to me instead of to the jeweler, Id ram them down your ungrateful throat.† He feel so strongly the importance of language in self-improvement, that he failed to see that it did not have an honest impact on Eliza. This is similar to how Prospero views Caliban as ungrateful towards his teaching of language, â€Å"Abhorred slave,/ Which any print of goodness wilt not take,/ Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,/ Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour† As can be seen here, it is evident that Prospero painstakingly underlines and exaggerates the value of the language he taught Caliban. â€Å"One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage, /Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like/ A thing most brutish, I endowd thy purposes/ With words that made them known. But thy vile race,/ Though thou didst learn, had that int which/ good natures/ Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou/ Deservedly confined into this rock,/ Who hadst deserved more than a prison.† Here Prospero acknowledges that class and language, though related, are not necessarily tied together. He makes a point that Caliban cannot overcome his class through learning language. Swearing in Pygmalion has an interesting dual use. It is primarily expressed in the word â€Å"bloody† by both Eliza and Higgins. Their use of it, however, shows the difference in class between the two. Eliza, who has been poor all her life, thinks nothing of using the word since she has been around it all the time. It is a merely an adjective or a harmless form of expression to her. Shaw deliberately makes Eliza’s speech terrible in order to highlight that one’s speech is dominated by their environment. Higgins, on the other hand, knows the use of this word and uses it to express his anger and frustration. Eventually Eliza does make use of her learned dialect, and it helps her greatly. It allows her to marry a man of the upper class and start her own business, as Higgins foreshadowed. This change was only able to come about after the internal self respect she gained by defending her self-respect from Higgins after the slipper incident. Caliban, a slave who ironically speaks in the same noble verse and Prospero, also benefits from the learned language in the way he is perceived by the other characters in the play such as Trinculo. Though at moments they were both ungrateful, both Eliza and Caliban became empowered and were able to gain a sense of freedom from their own social class by learning language.

Richard P. Feynman :: biographies biography bio

Richard Feynman, born on May 11, 1918 to Lucille and Melville Feynman, is remembered for many things by many people. He was Physicist, a Mathematician, a Noble Laureate in Physics, he worked at Los Alamos constructing the first atomic bomb, he probed the Challenger shuttle disaster, made new paths into Quantum Mechanics and Electrodynamics through Path Integrals and Feynman Diagrams, he was a teacher, a husband and a father. He was all these things and more, yet he was still just a man, like everyone else, and he liked to play the bongo drums. Feynman attended MIT where he received his bachelor if science degree and then Princeton for his Ph.D. It was during his time at Princeton that Feynman married his first wife, his high school sweetheart, Arline Greenbaum. Arline was already ill with tuberculosis at the time, and the young newlyweds could not even kiss. In 1942 the young couple left for Los Alamos where 24 year old Feynman would be made group leader in the theoretical division. Eventually Arline was admitted into the Albuquerque hospital where she eventually died in 1945. Feynman was very distraught. Feynman took several teaching positions over the following years, ending up at CalTech where he would spend the rest of his career. Feynman married two more time, in 1952 he married Mary Louise Bell, and in 1960 he married Gweneth Howarth. They had a son, Carl, and adopted a daughter, Michelle. During his time at CalTech Feynman agreed to teach a two-year course of introductory physics to freshman students. The lectures were recorded, transcribed and photographs were taken of all the blackboards. From these lectures three books, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, were published. Also published were two books by Ralph Leighton,Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman! in 1985 and What Do You Care What Other People Think? in 1988, both highly enjoyable books to read that capture the personal side of Feynman that he was so infamous for. Feynman died February 15, 1988 at the age of 69 from stomach cancer. The above picture is a formal pose of Feynman after receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Sin'ichiro Tomanaga and Julian Schwinger, for his work in Quantum Electrodynamics(QED). Although Tomanaga and Schwinger had independently created equivalent theories, it was Feynman's that proved to be the most original and far-reaching. Feynman was recruited onto the Los Alamos project in 1942, where he developed many experimental devices to test his theories, without having to blow up Los Alamos.

Discussion and Critique of Disney’s Pocahontas

Stereotypes are simply assumptions and generalizations that people make concerning a particular group. In most cases, these generalizations are often negative and are used to discredit and demean the target group. In the United States of America they have been in use since colonial times and are used to propagate racism. These stereotypes are spread by various methods such as in paintings, plays, comedies and films like in the case of Disney movies where the same is expressed through animated films such as Pocahontas, the Little Maiden among others.To narrow down the scope of this essay, the paper will specifically focus on how Disney films depict stereotypes of the Native Americans in the film, Pocahontas. In most of the Disney films, stereotyping is a subject that cannot be ignored. It has in many of their films been depicted as negative towards the Native Americans although in some cases they have been depicted as positive like in the case of Pocahontas. Most of these stereotypes are expressed by use of animated characters to represent various groups for example, women and young girls have been portrayed as oversexed especially those with big breasts and thin waists.Disney in the film Pocahontas though not overtly expressing the negative stereotypes that are found in the previous movies replicates some of them in a concealed manner while at the same time trying to portray other positive ones. Unlike in the previous films where women like Pocahontas were seen as overly sexed, in this film the young lady was portrayed as somebody who is shapely, mature high fashioned super model who is courageous, bright, politically progressive and literate. (Kilpatrick, J. )All Disney movies whether positively or negatively do not reflect a true picture and representation of races and in one way or the other try to reinforce negative cultural stereotypes of the native Americans. Disney in most films shows the natives as people who are primitive, savagery, unintelligent by th is is done by use of various animated creatures to represent this for example, in the Little Maiden Disney uses a dark and a light maiden to represent the characters of the natives and the whites respectively (Peach, L. J. 58).With reference to the above case, Disney uses the light mermaid which is portrayed as having good characters to represent the Whites while the dark mermaid with bad characters is used to represent the natives but unlike in the Little mermaid, Disney in Pocahontas brings the stereotype of love conquering racism by this super model saving the life of a Whiteman, Smith through love. â€Å"Pocahontas exudes a kind of soppy romanticism that not only saves John Smith’s life, but convinces the crew of the British ship to turn its greedy captain and return to England† (Giroux, 117).Disney films’ trials to depict native females as supportive, romantic, saviors and non-racists are challenged by other people who view this move in a negative light. Th ese are people like Green Rayna in the essay; The Pocahontas Perplex contradicts this by showing Pocahontas as a lady who betrays her race to the white race. (Peach, 95) In the film Pocahontas, there is under representation of races something that poses a very great danger to the children. The film fills the mind of these young children with a false notion that racism does not exist.Considering that the brain of a child is not yet fully developed, this child will take whatever is provided to them. Many parents do not see the harm that these films cause to the children and they think they are harmless something that is highly opposed by one of the top theorists Jack Zipes who argues that Disney films are dangerous to the children who watch them. To support this Giroux (121) says, â€Å"There is nothing innocent in what kids learn about race as portrayed in the magical world of Disney. †In the book, Celluloid Indians, the Native Americans are totally misrepresented in the films and are depicted as inferior to the whites. Those stereotypes that are depicted in this book can be classified into three that is mental, spiritual and sexual but the most important is the mental one. In most cases, native Indians have been depicted as warlike and have been portrayed as people who would fight at the slightest provocation and for this reason according to Kilpatrick (xvii), â€Å"they (the natives) have been firmly placed in the echelons of intelligence by many Euro-Americans†¦.There are other bad terms that have been used by the whites to refer to the Native Americans and especially to the Indians. These are terms such as dirty and red skinned, filthy, primitive, savagery and innocent. Most of these terms were used to compare the level of intelligence of the natives with that of the whites and thus insinuate that they are lesser intelligent that the whites. (Kilpatrick 1999; 32-35) In short in all Disney films, stereotyping is eminent whether positively or neg atively portrayed.In Pocahontas Disney tries to brainwash people into thinking that racism is a thing of the past but this is not true as in the end the two parties seem to go into separate ways. Nonetheless, the film tried to ameliorate the negative aspects of the Native Americans that have been portrayed by Disney’s previous films. These stereotypes are said to negatively impact on the children who in most cases tend to take what they see in the movies as the gospel truth.

Crim 101 Notes Essay

What is criminology? A social science studying crime and related phenomenon such as law making, criminal behavior, victimization and punishment Discipline of criminology is a recent development Most ideas and concepts we now have about crime and criminals emerged over last 2 or 3 centuries Modern criminology is multi-disciplinary (inter-disciplinary) Influenced by sociology, psychology, and biology The fascination with crime Crime is popular topic for newspapers, TV shows , books and movies There is little relationship between crime news and actual amount of crimes Media focus primarily on violent crimes, even though such crimes forms only smart part of all criminal activity Appears as though police solve more crimes and arrest more cirminals than they do in reality The appeal of crime stories and crime news Crime related stories are often dramatic and lurid Deal with moral questions of good vs evil Criminals appear in stories as insane or dangerous psychopaths Stories happen in short time span- between newscasts or newspaper editions Easy for the public to understand Felson’s 10 fallacies about crime Book 1. the dramatic Fallacy o keep ratings high, media seek strange/violent incidents to report/create dramas around murder makes up less than 1% of all crime, yet from watching TV or reading the papers, it seems like a commonplace events seems that most murders are well-planned, grisly affairs, or they happen solely by random chance in fact, most murders start as arguments that escalate into violence most crimes are relatively minor property crimes Actus Reus: a real event, in which somebody has committed or failed to commit an act b. Men Rea: criminal intent; you must have the intent to commit the act c. No legal defense or justification d. Must be contrary to a provision of criminal law Crime as normative violation pictures Mala in Se Mala in se: â€Å"something bad or evil in itself† Laws that criminalize acts most societies and cultures agree are inherently wrong, e. g. , murder and incest Mala Prohibita Mala prohibita: something that is deemed to be wrong or criminal only because it is prohibited Acts where there might be considerable disagreement from society to society re: their legality Concensus vs. conflicy * consensus| * conflict| * Society as a functional organism| * Society and social transformation rooted in social conflict| * Norms/expectations based on shared values/interests| * Society not organic or natural. But forced upon us| * Those who are different (e. g. ,criminals) are deemed to be abnormal| * Society/laws based on values and interests of those with the power|

Australopithecus Facts and Figures

Australopithecus Facts and Figures Name: Australopithecus (Greek for southern ape); pronounced AW-strah-low-pih-THECK-us Habitat: Plains of Africa Historical Epoch: Late Pliocene-Early Pleistocene (4-2 million years ago) Size and Weight: Varies by species; mostly about four feet tall and 50-75 pounds Diet: Mostly herbivorous Distinguishing Characteristics: Bipedal posture; relatively large brain About Australopithecus Although theres always the possibility that a stunning new fossil discovery will upset the hominid apple cart, for now, paleontologists agree that the prehistoric primate Australopithecus was immediately ancestral to genus Homo- which today is represented by only a single species, Homo sapiens. (Paleontologists have yet to pin down the exact time when the genus Homo first evolved from Australopithecus; the best guess is that Homo habilis derived from a population of Australopithecus in Africa about two million years ago.) The two most important species of Australopithecus were A. afarensis, named after the Afar region of Ethiopia, and A. africanus, which was discovered in South Africa. Dating to about 3.5 million years ago, A. afarensis was about the size of a grade-schooler; its human-like traits included a bipedal posture and a brain slightly bigger than a chimpanzees, but it still possessed a distinctly chimp-like face. (The most famous specimen of A. afarensis is the famous Lucy.) A. africanus appeared on the scene a few hundred thousand years later; it was similar in most ways to its immediate ancestor, although slightly bigger and better adapted to a plains lifestyle. A third species of Australopithecus, A. robustus, was so much bigger than these other two species (with a bigger brain as well) that its now usually assigned to its own genus, Paranthropus. One of the most controversial aspects of the various species of Australopithecus is their presumed diets, which is related intimately to their use (or non-use) of primitive tools. For years, paleontologists assumed that Australopithecus subsisted mostly on nuts, fruits, and hard-to-digest tubers, as evidenced by the shape of their teeth (and the wear on tooth enamel). But then researchers discovered evidence of animal butchering and consumption, dating to about 2.6 and 3.4 million years ago, in Ethiopia, demonstrating that some species of Australopithecus may have supplemented their plant diets with small servings of meat- and may (emphasis on the may) have used stone tools to kill their prey. However, its important not to overstate the extent to which Australopithecus was similar to modern humans. The fact is that the brains of A. afarensis and A. africanus were only about a third the size of those of Homo sapiens, and theres no convincing evidence, aside from the circumstantial details cited above, that these hominids were capable of using tools (though some paleontologists have made this claim for A. africanus). In fact, Australopithecus seems to have occupied a place fairly far down on the Pliocene food chain, with numerous individuals succumbing to predation by the meat-eating megafauna mammals of their African habitat.

WAS THE UNITED STATES FOUNDED ON CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES Essay

WAS THE UNITED STATES FOUNDED ON CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES - Essay Example the Pope. To avoid this very friction, the US constitution framed by Jefferson clearly demarcates between the State and the Church and again reaffirms it in the Bill of Rights. This article tries to shed some light on the issue, from the perspective of certain recent articles and other historical facts, and tries to explore the principles behind the formation of US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The article will also take a stand and will try to prove that US Constitution was not formed on Christian principles, but were solely based on the principles of fraternity, equality and justice for all. It is interesting to note that the people with opposing views on the subject of separation of Church and State have cited Thomas Jefferson in their arguments. The main reason behind this is the fact that Jefferson was one of the founding fathers of the US constitution formed in 1787. It is observed by the religious groups that Jefferson was an observant person and regularly attended church services during his tenure as the president. However, what many of the religious groups fail to say is that, he also, as Jewett aptly observes, â€Å"expressed contempt for any organized religion. And, saw as an anathema, any governmental control on religious thought† (Jewett, Jefferson and Religion). Jefferson was a follower of the Enlightenment theories of that age and thus believed in secularism, freedom and humanism. He was deeply influenced by the ethical theories of Stoicism and Epicures. Jesus, according to Jefferson, was a teacher in morality and his moral views were necessary to br ing freedom, happiness and to govern the society well. His god was a ‘god of reason’ who, he believed, established the laws on which nature functioned. Jefferson believed that one’s religious practice was of a personal nature which no state should try to control. This is evident in one of his letters which says â€Å"you must lay aside prejudices on both sides, and neither believe nor reject

Valuation of Securities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Valuation of Securities - Essay Example 500,000, then I have to look at the options available to me and perform a detailed analysis of each. This would allow me to determine which is best considering the risk and return profile of each option. I have made the decision to assess a life insurance investment option and a fund which I will manage on my own. Other investments which could be considered include bonds, shares and mutual funds. Life Insurance Investment Investing the amount of ?500,000 saved with a life insurance company may allow me to receive a stable income on an annual basis with an adjustment for inflation. The insurance policy that my insurance agent recommends is one that will pay me an annual sum that allows for an inflation adjustment and allows for the balance to be paid to my estate when I die. This information is presented in Table 1. Year Initial Investment/ Balance (?) Interest rate Inflation rate Capital Growth (?) Withdrawal (?) Balance (?) 0 500,000.00 0.04 0.03 0.00 0.00 500,000.00 1 500,000.00 0. 04 0.03 520000.00 15000.00 505000.00 2 505,000.00 0.04 0.03 525200.00 15450.00 509750.00 3 509,750.00 0.04 0.03 530140.00 15913.50 514226.50 4 514,226.50 0.04 0.03 534795.56 16390.91 518404.66 5 518,404.66 0.04 0.03 539140.84 16882.63 522258.21 6 522,258.21 0.04 0.03 543148.54 17389.11 525759.43 7 525,759.43 0.04 0.03 546789.80 17910.78 528879.02 8 528,879.02 0.04 0.03 550034.18 18448.11 531586.07 9 531,586.07 0.04 0.03 552849.51 19001.55 533847.96 10 533,847.96 0.04 0.03 555201.88 19571.60 535630.28 11 535,630.28 0.04 0.03 557055.50 20158.75 536896.75 12 536,896.75 0.04 0.03 558372.62 20763.51 537609.11 13 537,609.11 0.04 0.03 559113.48 21386.41 537727.06 14 537,727.06 0.04 0.03 559236.15 22028.01 537208.14 15 537,208.14 0.04 0.03 558696.47 22688.85 536007.62 16 536,007.62 0.04 0.03 557447.92 23369.51 534078.41 17 534,078.41 0.04 0.03 555441.55 24070.60 531370.95 18 531,370.95 0.04 0.03 552625.79 24792.71 527833.08 19 527,833.08 0.04 0.03 548946.40 25536.50 523409.90 20 523,409.90 0.04 0.03 544346.30 26302.59 518043.71 403055.62 Table 1:- Investment in Life Insurance Policy The information in Table 1 indicates that the policy will run for 20 years. It is assumed that the interest rate for the period would be 4% and the inflation rate - 3%. An amount of ?15,000 will be paid in the first year after allowing for inflation. If I die at the end of the first year my estate will receive a total of ?505,000. If not the annual payments will increase year after year to an annual payment of ?26,203.59 in the 20th year. At that time the balance on the account would be ?518,043 which would be paid to me or my estate if I die. The information in Table 1 also indicates that the balance on the policy would increase up to the 13th year but would start declining thereafter. My total receipts from this policy from year 1 to year 20 would be ?403,055.62 leaving a balance of ?518,043.71. This suggests that after 20 years I would have received a total of ?921,099.33 (?403,055.62 + ?518043.71). Therefore, I would gain a total of ?421,099.33 on my investment. Manage Funds Personally In the event that I choose to personally manage my funds I would want to diversify the risks involved by investing in a mix of government bonds and shares. Government bonds are basically risk free while investment in shares is considered to be risky. I would want to consider a 50:50 mix since I am hoping to get high returns that would be able to