...The piece of literature that grabbed my attention and had a great effect on me is A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, which was written by Ishmael Beah. The book is about Ishmael and his older brother and how they survived during the war in Sierra Leone. The boys live in horrific conditions and under a constant risk for their lives. The only thing that keeps them going is their hope, faith, love and memories about their family since they were told that there family was alive. However, due to the heartbreaking circumstances, the boys do not meet their family. As a consequence of such a cruel surviving, Ishmael and his friends are forced to become fearless child soldiers. However, Ishmael is eventually rescued by the United nations where he undergoes complete rehabilitation in the United States. Ishmael’s book inspires me to fight against injustice and crimes. I was born in Nepal, where we moved from, to the current residence in the US. Nepal is also under great political instability and social differences. Hence this book inspired me to fight against injustice and crimes. As a consequence, I am trying to make people aware by encouraging my friends and family to educate the Nepalese citizens. The book also provides a unique perspective of the dark sides of civil wars. I have learnt not to judge people instantly because their upbringing may have been completely different. Here, at the community college, I have met friends from different cultures and backgrounds. I have...
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...A Long Way Gone Essay Matthew Morgan Prof. Carey “On Democracy” Due: 02/27/08 For the “Everybody Reads” assignment I choose to attend the Central library book group discussion. When I first got there I was really surprised because I thought it was going to be a bigger event than what it was. There was only about 10 people total, and 5 of us were students who were there for this exact assignment. It was a really interesting discussion because half of the people that attended were my age and the other half was about two generations older, so there was a very diverse pool of perspectives and opinions. But because there was a large generation gap it was a bit more difficult for me to share my views, so I mainly listened and observed other people’s thoughts. The discussion itself was very helpful because of the different views people had about the memoir. One of the themes of A Long Way Gone that we discussed was the importance of hope. We mainly talked about how this theme was not constant throughout the memoir and that it changed with time. For example one person brought up how at first Ishmael’s only motivator was the hope of his parents being alive, then when he realized that he would never be reunited with them he had lost his hope. It was only when he remembered what his father had said about a person only lives if they have something to live for which gave him his hope back. As far as themes that’s really the only one that we discussed, but we did discuss a lot...
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...Out of all the songs that I have heard my entire life, there is one song, written by Gerard Way, with a line that goes, "Oh how wrong we were to think that immortality meant never dying" that has stuck with me. The paradox stuck out like a sore thumb, immortality was obviously synonymous to never dying and yet, it expresses a sense of regret or belated recognition of the fact that to be immortal did not simply mean to never die, but to achieve something far greater, something that stands the test of time, that goes beyond the finality of death and lives on long after the person is gone. Men try to go to great lengths to achieve some sort of immortality, after all, the fountain of youth was one that continues to captivate the imaginations of...
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...14. The Keynesian Approach to Stabilization Economists of the nineteenth century did not have our concept of government. They did not consider government’s role in stabilizing the economy. No matter, for the classical view was that prices and wages would automatically adjust to provide full employment and maximum output. If there were a recession, it would be the fault of suppliers providing goods that people did not want. Prices would fall, and suppliers would smarten up. Meanwhile, any unemployment would cause wages to be bid down.. The lower wages would make hiring look attractive, and the unemployed would be re-hired. Yes, if employers reduce their demand for labour, the wage will drop. This however will not change the fact that fewer people are employed than before. More people are hired than if demand had dropped and the wage had not responded, but the fact is, not as many people are hired as before. The labour market does not completely self-correct as wishfully assumed in Figure 14-1. It will not completely correct until labour demand rises back to its original level; this will happen when whatever caused the reduced labour demand is resolved. Figure 14-1. Classical View: Market Self-Correction. Note: It is useful to think of classical economists as assuming that Aggregate Demand is perfectly flexible or elastic. Consequently, only supply drives the economy. As we shall see below, Keynes makes the opposite assumption. Keynes’ reaction to the...
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...Why the Decriminalization and Legalization of Cannabis Would Improve Canadian Society Criminology 101 - Section 02 Nikaya Mirhadi-Pathon Capilano University Cannabis, the plant from which marijuana is derived, is the most widely used, produced and trafficked drug worldwide (Ducatti Flister, 2012). The decriminalization of marijuana has been a widely debated topic on a global scale as many advocate for it’s therapeutic purposes. In the city of Seattle, there are reportedly more medicinal marijuana dispensaries than Starbucks outlets. With the recent rise of dispensaries, two Washington University students are preparing to capitalize on this phenomenon by releasing an app for iPhones called Canary, billed as “Uber for marijuana” where an illegal delivery service can bring high-grade cannabis to your home within the hour (Altman, 2014). Governments world wide have invested copious amounts of money in fighting drug production and consumption, even though, the war on drugs has increased cannabis seizures, we see in countries like Canada, that regulated distribution of marijuana, has made it more readily available for both recreational and medicinal users (Ducatti Flister, 2012). Although, police within the Canadian jurisdiction are capable of pursuing criminal charges for cannabis possession for those who are distributing and consuming illegally, there is still a lack of consensus on the legal status of cannabis in Canada. Though the drug is illegal in Canada, with exceptions...
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...this endeavor – the change, especially in the past several decades, can be considered modest at best (Lewis Mumford Report). For years we’ve listened to politicians support visionary ideas of bringing together people of varied ethnic backgrounds. “Until justice is blind to color,” stated Lyndon Johnson during his presidency, “until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men’s skin, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.” Government programs like affirmative action were designed with the hope in mind of them being the keys to closing the gap between the economically and socially superior, and the historically underprivileged (Ravitch). Futurists and creative thinkers have come and gone preaching the idea, the dream, of a time when racial injustices would be a thing of the past, and yet it ironically seems we have a great distance to travel before this becomes reality. Perhaps it is not the assumed impossibility of closing this gap that keeps people from supporting these dreams. When one considers the motivators of society today, it’s difficult to not see why most would choose to put these concerns on the backburner. We are a world based on economic needs, status quos, we see...
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...We never knew for sure whether it was real, what caused it or whether it was limited only to the left side of the curve. But the Flynn Effect appears to be at the end of its days in Europe, at least. This from the Times:- WE ARE ABOUT AS SMART AS WE’RE GOING TO GET, SAYS IQ PIONEER * Test Results are starting to level out * Morality skills are the next step It is a common refrain, repeated in response to every new television reality show and every bumper crop of school exam results: society is dumbing down. Scientists have long argued the opposite, pointing to the now widely accepted “Flynn effect”, which shows that over the past century average IQ scores have improved across the developed world, irrespective of class or creed. Now the man who first observed this effect, the psychologist James Flynn, has made another observation: intelligence test scores have stopped rising. Far from indicating that now we really are getting dumber, this may suggest that certain of our cognitive functions have reached — or nearly reached — the upper limits of what they will ever achieve, Professor Flynn believes. In other words, we can’t get much better at the mental tasks we are good at, no matter how hard we try. If we are to make any further progress, we will have to start exercising different parts of our brain, particularly the parts controlling language acquisition and empathy, according to Professor Flynn, an emeritus professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand. So a...
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...century. The poem consists of four stanzas and the mood of the poem progresses from being so depressing, desolate and pessimistic to being positive. In the first sentence, “I leant upon a coppice gate”, suggests that he’s transitioning and he has a choice on what to believe in. Two hints that show he is changing the way he thinks are by the use of metaphor in “..weakening eye of day” which implies the sun setting to winter and “..bine-stems scored the sky” which is an imagery that conveys things are changing. Hardy also uses archaic diction to recall the past by using the word “nigh”. The way which past effects the present is also a theme which Hardy explored. ‘In Tenebris I’, is translated into ‘In Darkness’ which defines the poem very well. The poem is very hard to interpret but has a particular pattern which takes a few evaluations to understand. The arrangement of colons and semi-colons separate the lines to make intentionally different sentences and also in the beginning of the stanza, the word ‘wintertime’ suggests that the ‘grim reaper’ takes the life of something. This also sets the gloomy mood for the poem .There is also the use of paradox in the first stanza, “Twice no one dies”, which implies that his spiritual believe is dead and paradoxically, death can’t disappoint you. This has affected him...
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...Kathleen Muenzen MLA The Emergence: Pueblo Cultural Narrative in Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire According to an ancient Pueblo legend, passed down through generations of oral storytelling, all life emerged at once from the interior of the Earth into the “fifth world,” the habitable Earth, in an event called the Emergence. Leslie Marmon Silko, a nature writer and member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, examines the natural world through the Native American cultural lens in “Landscape, History and the Pueblo Imagination.” She characterizes the human-nature relationship as one of partnership and integration, justified by the communal Emergence into being, and emphasizes that survival in a natural world rife with danger relies on eternal respect for and connection with all other elements in an environment. The opening and closing chapters of Edward Abbey’s autobiographical narrative, Desert Solitaire, parallel the Pueblo Emergence as they recount the experiences of a man who spends a summer in Arches National Park in Moab, Utah, and finds companionship in a non-human setting. Abbey’s odyssey from a separate world dominated by human civilization, through the metaphorical door of the Earth-worn arches, and into an ancient wilderness controlled by the collaboration of each composing element marks a “re-emergence” into an original state of existence. As Abbey migrates alone between the cold, dark material world that characterizes the human reality and the warm, colorful and illuminated...
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...Throughout history western and eastern philosophies have developed a vast segregation from one another. The geographical and cultural distance between eastern and western civilization determined massive differences between the two. On the other hand, the works of ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates, and some eastern philosophies like Taoism have many of the same or common ideas and concepts. Both eastern and western philosophies regardless of having similarities have distinctive differences when examining the view of the conception of the good. In this rgard, each philosophy is noticed to have beliefs that strive for followers to improve their lives and to be on a path of self-purification. This essay will primarily focus on understanding the basics of the conception of good in Taoist philosophy as well as the basic conception of good according to Socrates. While analyzing we will also determine if the Taoist conception of good is more reasonable than that of Socrates. In Taoism, the Tao is worshiped as the first-cause of the universe and is a developed philosophy, which promotes self-purification of an individual to meet Taoist ideals. Taoists believe that nature and the earth is constantly in flux. Simply, the only constant in the world is change. An essential element of the Tao is a term P’u or the un-carved block. P'u is translated to the words "uncarved wood" or "uncarved block." This is a metaphor that implies that each living being is given our personality at birth...
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...Internet is one of the wonderful inventions of the last century. It becomes more and more popular throughout the world and a great number of people use it. Nowadays, surfing the internet is a preferred pastime for most people specially teenagers and young adults. A survey report, Generation Rx.com by the Kaiser Family Foundation(2001) found the number of teens and young people going online today. By analyzing the results of a nationally representative, including an oversample of nearly 200 African American and Latino youth ninety percent of young people between the ages of 15 to 24 years have been online. Four percent of the rest have never used a computer, and six percent have used a computer but never gone online. Among teens aged 15-17 years, ninety five percent have gone online, and only one percent have never used a computer. Most of them spend a majority of their time to surf the net. They may use the internet to entertain e.g. playing online games. Besides, their education or might jobs require surfing the net. Some people blame it as a dangerous and tremendous waste of time. The others see the internet as an efficient teaching and learning tool for youths .From my point of view, everything has it’s benefits and drawbacks. The paragraphs below provide the positive and negative effects of teenagers and young adults surfing the net based on the causes mentioned above. One of the positive effects is that surfing the net can cause teens and young people to improve...
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...towards it. It is something that has to be pursued on a constant level throughout our lives. After reading the articles on happiness, choices in life, and experienced well-being I have come to realize a few significant points that could point towards being happier and coming closer to actual happiness. Happiness can reached in a number of ways, and there are many steps that people can take to increase happiness in their own lives regardless of their background or the situations they find themselves in. In the first article we read named “The Smiling Professor”, Claudia Dreifus is interviewing a psychologist named Dan Gilbert. Dan Gilbert has spent his career studying the nature of human happiness. To many people Dan Gilbert is known as “Professor Happiness”. Throughout this interview Gilbert tends to refer to happiness as something that will happen to our future selves. When asked how predicting our feelings of future events could relate to understanding happiness Gilbert states “Because if we can’t predict how we’d react in the future, we can’t set realistic goals for ourselves or figure out how to reach to them”. Gilbert has provided one way we can attempt to reach happiness in the form of setting goals for ourselves. When setting goals for ourselves, we should make it realistic goals that we can achieve. Then with the achievement of those goals it will brings us happiness. Personal goals can be related to practically anything in our lives that is important to us, and most...
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...Post, 2011) Pakistan and the United States have been allies throughout the war on terror. Pakistan has provided troops along with convoy routes for quick resupply to coalition forces in Afghanistan. Many say that the United States has bought these routes through their yearly multi-billion dollar aid to Pakistan. Others say that the United States will use force and step on or over anyone that gets in its way. More and more of the general US public believe and voice that Pakistanis are simply pulling the wool over the United States’ eyes by providing training grounds to terrorist cells. Pakistan is as much a problem as is al-Qaeda. But are Pakistani-US relations strained? Many will lead you to believe that it is or that there is simply no relationship, only a puppet and its master. Throughout this paper and by using the one example above, I will examine the relationship between the two countries along with the United States’ use of power to forward a supposedly common objective. Many would believe that relations between Pakistan and the United States are all but gone. As one of the United States’ major allies in the Middle East, Pakistan has been questionable for quite some time. Pakistan has shown more than once...
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...JAMAICA 1. Analyze the film: setting, characterization (answer questions in your worksheet). - Use the list of adjectives in your characterization of Ivanhoe Martin - Use the lyrics of the two songs in your characterization of Ivanhoe Martin 1. The movie takes place in 1970’s Jamaican slum, where there is a lot of poverty and crime in the streets. The movie ends near the coast by the countryside. The setting welcomes the viewer into their life, and we feel their passion for music, and their will to fight it to the end 2. Ivanhoe Martin is the main person of the movie, and is played by the famous Jimmy cliff. Ivanhoe lived on the countryside for the most of his life, until he decided to move to the city to pursuit his dream of becoming a famous reggae singer. He soon realizes that the life in the city is tough. He is taken advantage of by people before he learns to live in the big city. Before he starts the singing career he will have to settle down and get a job. But getting a normal job in the city is very difficult to find, and in his search for a job he both goes to the rich neighbor hood and the poor slum. It is very interesting to see in this movie how the city is described and divided in this movie, and it is worth noticing that even though it is the same city, he actually travels from the third world to the western life style. It is also described how the western society in Kingston can control the third world area in form the police. Though the police have...
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...SUMMARY OF WORLD HAPPINESS REPORT 2013 WORLD HAPPINESS REPORT 2013 was edited by John Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs In July 2011 the UN General Assembly passed a historic resolution. It invited member countries to measure the happiness of their people and to use this to help guide their public policies. The first WORLD HAPPINESS REPORT was published in 2012. The need is a rising worldwide demand that policy framing must be closer to issues that really matters to people as perceived from their lives. The reports look for differences and trends in the equality or inequality with which happiness is distributed within and among countries and regions. The essence of traditional virtue ethics is that happiness is achieved by harnessing the will and the passions to live the right kind of life. A desirable level of happiness means feeling mildly to moderately positive usually, with occasional negative emotions in appropriate situations. Promoting a healthy start in life is vital, and there is ample evidence to indicate that early intervention programs have an important protective or preventive effect. Also, individuals who are happier tend to have better social relations. Well-being is also related to having less gossip and more meaningful conversations. The questions to use must be chosen according to end use purpose since they are of critical importance for measuring subjective wellbeing. The contextual impact of preceding questions must be also taken care of. The analysis...
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