...In this moment, I am not afraid. It doesn’t matter that the barrel of a gun is pointed towards me. It doesn’t matter that the man holding that gun is promising that he will shoot me if he has to, if I don’t cooperate. It doesn’t matter that I am the only one standing between this man’s weapon and my best friend. I am not afraid. Of course, being bulletproof might have something to do with my newfound bravery. The man is still raving, but his words are only noise to me. I don’t think he really wants to shoot the gun, either, or he would have done it by now instead of talking about it so much. Maybe this man isn’t a killer. Maybe he’s not ready for the consequences becoming a murderer would have him face. To make his decision easier, I grab...
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...Peer Innocence (An Analysis of Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell) Pressure is a common obstacle throughout the journey of life. Whether it is stress, a big due date, or peer pressure, it is experienced nearly every day. Peer pressure is defined as getting forced into something that was not wanted by other people, friend or not. It is considered a form of bullying. In the story Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell, is a personal narrative of what happened to him when he was a police officer in Burma, India. Peer pressure was what made him make the decision he did and due to that he has to live forever with the consequences. Certainly, we have all fallen to some form of peer pressure. Peer pressure can greatly influence decisions, always...
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...careers. In the coming weeks you will complete various writing assignments, taking each of them through the stages of drafting, revising, and editing before handing them in for a grade. I will give you all assignments in writing posted to Blackboard; also I will post all reading material on Blackboard or we’ll retrieve materials through online sources; thus there are no texts to buy for this course. Requirements You will complete approximately four graded assignments over the course of this semester – comprised of the following: 1. Politics, government policy, and/or social and cultural issues. Some of you may be interested and engaged in these matters already – such matters as economic theory and policy, immigration, gun rights vs. sensible gun regulation, health care policy, veteran affairs and funding, equal pay for women, women’s access to abortion and contraception, the right wing’s current attempt to defund Planned Parenthood; the Tea Party vs. . . . ALL government at large; race issues (the Black Lives Matter movement and all that it entails, especially policing in minority communities and minority profiling); voter rights vs. draconian voter ID laws and eliminating early voting; drug policies; foreign policy (involvement/intervention vs. isolationism; military involvement vs. diplomatic/economic solutions to conflict, e.g., the current debate...
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...Davy Crockett Gun Craze by Sarah Nilsen In April 2005, sixty thousand members of the National Rifle Association gathered in Houston, Texas for their 134th Annual Meeting. The keynote speaker for the event was embattled U.S. House Majority Leader, Representative Tom De Lay. After his speech, De Lay was joined on stage by Lee Hamel dressed as Davy Crockett in full buckskin attire and a coonskin hat. Hamel presented De Lay with a handcrafted flintlock rifle that he had made for the event with his mentor, Cecil Brooks. The presentation of the reproduction rifle to De Lay is part of a long NRA tradition that began in 1955 when Walt Disney‟s Davy Crockett series first appeared on television. When Charlton Heston received his handcrafted flintlock rifle in 1989, he uttered his famous words, “From my cold dead hands.” President Ronald Reagan and Vice President Dick Cheney also joined the list of those who received facsimile Davy Crockett flintlock rifles from a man dressed in Crockett buckskin attire. This tradition is part of the NRA‟s efforts to represent the gun as a key instrument in the founding of the United States. It secured this ideological representation in part by appropriating the mythology of early American heroes like Davy Crockett. Davy Crockett became emblematic of the gun mythology of early American life. This mythology was synergized by the NRA and popularized through children‟s television to promote a conception of the role of the gun in American cultural...
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...Is America Returning to the Wild, Wild West? I envision a time and a place that allows people to walk around with gun holsters containing polished semi automatic weapons and a right to use them at their own discretion. Gentlemen who disagree at a bar can take their argument to the street, where they engage in a legal duel. A shopkeeper who pulls out a gun and shoots a young teenager to death because he caught her trying to steal more than five hundred dollars in goods. Or how about a good old fashioned shoot out? If you were thinking that I was referring to a small western town back in the late eighteen hundreds, you'd be wrong. The wild, wild west has made a comeback to modern America. That era, synonymous with lawlessness and vigilante justice is being revived in essence by the introduction of legislation called "Stand Your Ground". Currently, there is a debate raging in our country over the rights of gun owners in regards to gun control and startling increases in justifiable homicides all over the United States. Recently, there was an incident that sparked a huge backlash against the National Rifle Association (NRA) and their support of a law called "Stand Your Ground". The law states that "... a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if: (1) He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible...
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...Background and History 5 Definition of Terms 6 Purpose and Objectives 6 Research Hypothesis 7 Method 8 Military Based Video Games 8 Shooting Simulators 10 Indoor Simulated Marksmanship Trainer 10 Long Range Precision Shooting Simulator 10 Driving Simulators 11 Flight Simulators 13 Results 14 References 17 List of Tables Figure 1: Real World Improvement Vs. Simulation Realism Military Training FAQ. (2013). In VirTra. Retrieved March 24, 2013, from http://www.virtra.com/military-faq/ 15 Table 2: Long Rang Precision Shooting Simulator Sherer, K. (2007, October 29). Laser Shot announces Personal Weapon Simulator partnership. In Gamzig. Retrieved March 28, 2013, from http://www.gizmag.com/go/8224/.........................................................................16 ABSTRACT This paper explores a brief history and the current utilization of virtual simulators and video games within the United States Department of Defense (DoD). Focusing on modern times, the US military is continuing to utilize virtual simulators and war based video games to assist in the training of troops before going on the battle front. The US Military presently uses numerous types of simulators for training, the following will include the implementation of ISMIT (indoor simulated marksmanship trainer) and LRPSS (long rang precision shooting simulator) as well as flight and driving simulators. In their own time the troops who play war based video games, like Call of Duty, Medal of...
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...Kennedy-Moore (2015), other factors such as family violence, parental discipline, peer rejection, and school problems are established risk factors for aggression. Few parents worry about if violent videogames will turn their children into criminals. With my personal experience, I don’t worry the least bit whether or not my children will become violent or aggressive; let alone become a criminal due to the videogames they play. If these types of games were so inspiring on the younger generation, I’d really be concerned with my son jumping off rooftops because he likes to play superhero type games like Batman and Spiderman. Another article by Dotinga (2003) that I have come across did a study of videogame violence with some teenage boys and girls. During the research study on boys and girls the researchers found that out of the 22 kids who played video games the most each day, were the likeliest to have behavioral problems, exhibit hyperactivity and have trouble academically. According to Greg Toppo’s (2015) article, “How Violent Video Games Really Affect Kids”, the shooter of the Sandy Hook shooting had been religiously playing one particular game for eight to 10 hours, about 9 times in a three month span leading up to the shooting. That game was Dance Dance Revolution, a not so violent video game. Now investigators did find some typical teenage boys...
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...Post-modernism in Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet: a comparison of two creative works from two different periods. In 1996, Baz Luhrmann directed “Romeo + Juliet”, a modern twist on the famous tragedy play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare in 1597, in which the main characters Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet where portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. While some praise the strange interpretation of the old tale, there are also those who condemn the rendition as destructive and disrespectful to the great work of Shakespeare. There will always be two sides to every story and this study will take that into consideration as well as comparing the two different yet similar works to see how post modernism has played a role in Luhrmann’s version of Romeo and Juliet. Postmodernism has been given many definitions. Some say it’s simply the outlook that the generation of late twenty first century has on life which entails the mistrust and dismissal of theories that existed before such as religion, ethics and law. According to these youths, the difference between right and wrong or what the meaning of life is based solely on that individual’s perspective. In film, the idea of postmodernism is somewhat similar as it’s an artist medium in which to undermine social norms and present one’s individual belief. The difference lies in that postmodernism in film concerns bringing in many aspects of popular culture to produce something...
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...every move. This movie was written by Michael Blake and directed by Kevin Costner who also is the lead actor throughout the film. Other actors include Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney Grant, and Floyd Red Crow Westerman. The story starts with a wounded Civil War soldier about to have his foot amputated when he makes an attempt at his life by stealing a horse and running recklessly across the open battlefield nearly getting shot. The build from this scene is that the soldiers fighting see his act of desperation and encouragement and a distraction and use the fact that the enemy is so focused on shooting him off his horse that they never see the final attack coming. The end of this scene Kevin Costner throws up his arms and glides with the horse like they were one in a full gallop and is deemed a hero and the general not only gives him the horse(Cisco) but also lends his personal surgeon to save his foot. This is the start to a beautiful and emotional story that builds into a love story between the soldier, a white Indian woman, and the entire Lakota tribe. The bond between the soldier and...
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...The Boondock Saints I chose to view and analyze the film The Boondock Saints. There were many different elements I focused on while viewing the film. These elements were broken down into the following categories: narrative, theatrical elements, cinematography, editing, sound, and the overall experience. I will begin with stating my personal interpretations and my own understandings of the narrative. Throughout the film there are two main characters. These two characters are Irish brothers that share a deep sense of their Catholic religion. Their names are Murphy and Connor McManus. Murphy and Connor are two ordinary men who are put in an extraordinary situation; Connor risks his own life to save the life of his brother. The situation starts from a bar fight with two Russian mafia soldiers. The Russians lose the fight with the two brothers; the next morning they come after the McManus brothers for revenge. Murphy and Connor kill the two men in self defense and go to the police station. While in the holding cell, they are given a message from a spiritual force to rid the world of evil men. From that moment they devote themselves to a battle between good and evil. Another important character is David Della Rocco, also known as the “Funny Man” or just Rocco. Rocco is a package boy for the Yakaveta family Italian mafia. The head of the Yakaveta family is “Papa” Joe Yakaveta. “Papa” Joe sets up Rocco in a situation to have him killed; Rocco finds out about “Papa” Joe’s plans and...
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...Reality Eclipsing Romance The American Cowboy, by reason of his picturesqueness, was a prime subject for entertainments like the Wild West show. However, the limitations of popular entertainment caused William Cody to stress the cowboy’s attractive charm to the exclusion of other qualities. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, formed in 1883 and lasting until 1913, romanticized versions of a time and place, and shaped the myth of the Wild West, including the glamorized image of the cowboy. When the world spun into the twentieth century, millions of people believed they recalled the American Wild West because “they had seen it, full of life and color, smoking guns and galloping horses, presided over by the most recognizable celebrity of his day: William F. Cody, or Buffalo Bill.” Spectators accepted the vivid personal memories that the Wild West show generated as historical truth. Although William F. Cody claimed that the motive behind Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show was to preserve “The Great West that Was,” his dramatized and inaccurate portrayals belied the true portrait of the American Cowboy to the public. At one time or another, William Cody performed the duties of a U.S. Army Scout, Indian Fighter, rancher, businessman, and world-renowned entertainer, but still, Cody never actually worked as a cowboy. Cody claimed that he staged his memories, “in the hope of giving permanent form to the history of the Plains” However, he contradicts this claim with his account of the obsession...
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...At liftoff, Matt Eversmann said a Hail Mary. He was curled into a seat between two helicopter crew chiefs, the knees of his long legs up to his shoulders. Before him, jammed on both sides of the Black Hawk helicopter, was his "chalk," twelve young men in flak vests over tan desert camouflage fatigues. He knew their faces so well they were like brothers. The older guys on this crew, like Eversmann, a staff sergeant with five years in at age twenty-six, had lived and trained together for years. Some had come up together through basic training, jump school, and Ranger school. They had traveled the world, to Korea, Thailand, Central America... they knew each other better than most brothers did. They'd been drunk together, gotten into fights, slept on forest floors, jumped out of airplanes, climbed mountains, shot down foaming rivers with their hearts in their throats, baked and frozen and starved together, passed countless bored hours, teased one another endlessly about girlfriends or lack of same, driven in the middle of the night from Fort Benning to retrieve each other from some diner or strip club on Victory Drive after getting drunk and falling asleep or pissing off some barkeep. Through all those things, they had been training for a moment like this. It was the first time the lanky sergeant had been put in charge, and he was nervous about it. Pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death, Amen. It was midafternoon, October 3, 1993. Eversmann's Chalk Four...
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...On August 19, 2009, Tommy Davis, the chief spokesperson for the Church of Scientology International, received a letter from the film director and screenwriter Paul Haggis. “For ten months now I have been writing to ask you to make a public statement denouncing the actions of the Church of Scientology of San Diego,” Haggis wrote. Before the 2008 elections, a staff member at Scientology’s San Diego church had signed its name to an online petition supporting Proposition 8, which asserted that the State of California should sanction marriage only “between a man and a woman.” The proposition passed. As Haggis saw it, the San Diego church’s “public sponsorship of Proposition 8, which succeeded in taking away the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens of California—rights that were granted them by the Supreme Court of our state—is a stain on the integrity of our organization and a stain on us personally. Our public association with that hate-filled legislation shames us.” Haggis wrote, “Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent.” He concluded, “I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Scientology.” Haggis was prominent in both Scientology and Hollywood, two communities that often converge. Although he is less famous than certain other Scientologists, such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, he had been in the organization for nearly thirty-five years. Haggis wrote the screenplay for “Million Dollar Baby,” which won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2004, and he wrote and directed...
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...FUN IN THE WORKPLACE: TOWARD AN ENVIRONMENT-BEHAVIOR FRAMEWORK RELATING OFFICE DESIGN, EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY, AND JOB SATISFACTION By ALEXANDRA M. MILLER A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF INTERIOR DESIGN UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2005 Copyright 2005 by Alexandra M. Miller ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Margaret Portillo, for her direction and guidance throughout the entire research process. I would also like to thank Dr. M. Joyce Hasell for her support and valuable expertise. Additional thanks go to Dr. Larry Winner for his indispensable assistance as a statistical consultant. I would also like to thank PUSH for providing an excellent example of a fun workplace. In particular, I would like to thank partners John Ludwig, Chris Robb, and Rich Wahl for allowing me to conduct a case study of their business. Additional thanks go to Ron Boucher, Jourdan Crumpler, and Gordon Weller for taking the time to participate in interviews. I would also like to express my gratitude to Kathryn Voorhees for her help, humor, and friendship as she accompanied me throughout the research process. Finally, I would like to thank all of my friends and family for their support. In particular, I would like to thank to my parents for their constant support and for helping me to achieve my dreams. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..........
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...Burch, L. M. (n.d.). Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. Retrieved March 24, 2016, from http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hbem20#.VvS04RasIlI Introduction- In the critical analysis “Kissing in the Carnage: An Examination of Framing on Twitter During the Vancouver Riots” by Lauren M. Burch, Evan L. Frederick & Ann Pegoraro; it was certain that the biggest hockey game of the National Hockey League season had been occurring, but the riot it has spawned in Vancouver makes it look like something far more politically charged may be the cause. In the introduction of the text it states “On June 15, 2011, more than 150,000 fans assembled on the streets of Vancouver to watch game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Vancouver Canucks and the Boston Bruins. Within minutes of the Canucks loss, a riot began. One aspect that made this event unique was that it was documented on Twitter” this would clearly indicate that there was a relationship between the fans knowledge of the current affair which was the hockey game and the Literary review-RQ- 1. Is there a relationship between social media use and KNOWLEDGE of current affairs? 2. What is the relationship between social media use and knowledge of stand your ground law? 3. What is the relationship between social media use and attitude toward stand your ground law? Methodology- In the text it is stated that Twitter is a fairly new medium within the sport communication scenery; a growing body of literature...
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